Analysis of the Marketing Communications Campaign of your favourite Assignment

Analysis of the Marketing Communications Campaign of your favourite athletic shoe brand - Assignment Example Herein, the decision makers attempt to serve their customers in a way better than its competitors (Payne, p57). In these respect, communication is a vital factor. Communication plays a fundamental role in facilitating the entire marketing plan. Therefore, an organisation must develop ‘two way communications’ with its employees and customers. Proper communication channel helps a company to spread awareness regarding its product among the customers. ‘Integrated Marketing Communication’ is the latest and the most effective way of developing proper planning marketing. This primary objective of this paper is to explain and analyse integrated marketing communication in the context of a shoe brand company. In this respect, it will attempt to deal with various aspects of integrated marketing communication (IMC) and its formulation. At first, a brief description about the concept of IMC will be discussed followed by its implementation process. In order to study the effects of implementing integrated marketing communication, an athlete shoe making company is chosen and is briefly introduced. It will be followed by a comprehensive analysis of Integrated Marketing Communication Model. Finally, the conclusion will present the important findings of this paper. Among the four Ps of marketing, ‘promotion’ is very necessary for spreading awareness and for convincing the customers about the product. The promotional activities deal with adverting, communication and public relation. The integrated marketing communication (IMC) is a concept that helps to formulate the entire promotional planning for a company. Specifically, it can be defined as the ‘marketing mix for communication’. Therefore, it is necessary to understand the role of communication in developing effective and efficient marketing strategies. Marketing communication is important to attract new consumers for new product categories. Consumers’ perception regarding

General Management Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

General Management - Case Study Example Sales took place in software service but big hardware and software were sold occasionally and not at a regular interval which led to fluctuation in profitability. In addition, economic conditions and internal problems also led to major setback for the firm. Constraints Main constraint for the firm was that the customer demanded low cost product and the sale of its hardware’s and software’s were pretty less as compared to the sale of software packages which resulted in loss of money in the company’s ongoing services. The external factors also acted as one of the major constraint in the working of the firm. Objectives Personal objectives and corporate objectives are important for organizations as the personal objectives would help the members of the organization to stay maintained and disciplined towards the work and working environment and the corporate objectives would define the goals and target that are to be achieved. Both personal and corporate objectives are somehow linked with each other. Corporate objectives usually mean to achieve a set goal like to capture market share of 10%, customer satisfaction and other factors n relation to the business. Therefore personal objectives would help to achieve the corporate objectives of the firm. Industry Analysis The industry analysis would take into consideration tools such as SWOT analysis which would look at the strength and weaknesses, the internal issues along with the firm’s opportunity and threats referred to as the external issues both for software industry and the firm. SWOT Analysis Strength: The partners of the firm, Dave had extensive programming experience and had worked for many software firms. The firm’s software package was highly praised by its customers and this it can be said that the strategy was highly successful adding it to be one of the strength of the company. The software industry had distributors according to the size and need of the customers. Weakness: The hardware and software because of their high price were not sold at regular interval which impacted the profitability of the firm. SWO primary source of income did not provide SWO with stable source of income. The firm was also financially unstable as a result banks refused to offer loans also lack of consistent data entry proved the internal issues of the firm. Opportunities: opportunity for SWO in the future is to either sell of the firm or to expand the business in order to stay competitive in the software industry. In addition marketing sector can also be improved to create awareness. Threat: A major threat came from the competitors of SWO as competition in the software industry is quite stiff. ACCPAC, IBM and Arthur Anderson were the leading competitors in the software industry. Key Success factors According to the distributors, better inventory and accounts management was the key success factor for the firm to regain its position and make a mark in the software industry. Co nsumer Analysis I II III IV Who Business form Computer parts Small distributors Mid size customers What distributors distributors distributors distributors When business Why bankrupt Unhappy with SWO service Receivables problems N/A How Provide effective service Provide service with the problem Market size N/A N/A N/A N/A Implications: Individuals Professionals

Gender, Power, and Isolation in Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong Essay

Gender, Power, and Isolation in Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong  Ã‚   The cultural studies approach to an open text allows the reader to focus on the culture of a specified society. He/she can study the use of social effects and construction of reality on the people or land. "According to the Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature "cultural studies involve scrutinizing a cultural phenomenon and drawing conclusions about the changes in that phenomenon over a period of time" (Geurin 240)." When utilizing the cultural studies approach, the reader must search the whole text for an overall range of situations and reasons why culture would shape a society. This cultural evidence can be found in Tim O'Brien's "Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong" because of its wide use of gender construction, levels of power, and the theme of isolation.   One of the major concerns in "Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong" is gender construction--especially when it comes to females. How do we usually classify the differences between male and female? During the 1960's, great gender instability occurred. Men were viewed as the dominant, reliable, and powerful figure, while the women were more feminine, quaint, and soft-spoken. All of these characteristics are similarly traced in O'Brien's "Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong". Although it was very unlikely, one of the men's girlfriends comes to stay with them in their perimeter. Tim O'Brien describes the appearance of Mary Anne Bell when he writes, "She had long white legs and blue eyes and a complexion like strawberry ice cream..." (93). Instantly, the reader takes note of the gender construction of females in the story and how they are supposed to be perceived. Mary Anne is a delicate figure who is caug... ...s would sometimes vanish for days at a time...moving like shadows through the moonlight," (92). The "Greenies" as the other men called them, became the major symbol of seclusion in the story. Although the soldiers were isolated from the reality of war, the physical and emotional affects of war were enough to disrupt the routine in their lives and create a new society in their surrounding environment.   The cultural studies approach is only one way of analyzing an open text such as the story "Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong", but it is one of the best ways to determine the social actions of a society and the reasons for their cultural beliefs. Having knowledge of tools such as gender construction, levels of power, and the theme of isolation, the reader becomes personally involved with the characters and the ways in which they are coerced to live their lives.   

History of Graphics

As a doctor in Montreal, Bethink frequently sought out the poor and gave them free medical care. As a thoracic surgeon, he traveled to Spain (1936? 1 937) and to China (1938-1939) to perform battlefield surgical operations on war casualties. Created by Ghana Sin Guy. Huber People's Publishing House. [107] Culture and politics[edit] This magazine cover reproduced from an Orlando poster by Gusty Novel, depicts four famous Iranian writers of the 20th century (Gala Assam Bearing, All- Kafka Deckhand, and Sadie Headway). In order to create this color scheme the artist uses only two colors (orange and green) over a yellow background.By using a circular arrangement of faces she tries to achieve a balanced (1971). Richard Evaded was an American photographer. Evaded capitalized on his early success in fashion photography and expanded into the realm of fine art. This is a salaried poster portraits of the Battles, originally produced for 9 January 1967 edition of the American magazine Look. The Barack Obama â€Å"hope† poster is an Iconic Image of Barack Obama designed by artist Sheppard Faller. The Image became one of the most widely recognized symbols of Beam's campaign message, spawning many variations and imitations, including some commissioned by the Obama campaign.In January 2009, after Obama had won the election, Fairy's mixed-media stencil portrait version of the Image was acquired by the Smithsonian Institution for Its National Portrait Gallery. This political poster by Sociopath ?r L © about Ulster. Andrew Pavlov's poster of Poet IMMUNOASSAY (2003). This poster is a graphic 1 OFF (Constructivism) was almost always in demand in Russia and it can become one of principal trends now. Some of the contemporary Russian artists and art historians have already suggested the new term – Additive Constructivism.It emphasizes the return to modernism, which starts to significantly push out the postmodern art practices. It's not a postmodern performance. The Co nstructivist color solution proves that so it is. Do Computer aided graphic design in posters[edit] With the arrival of computer aided graphic design an assortment of novel effects, digital techniques, and innovative styles have been emerged in poster designs. With software such as Adobe Photos, Corer and Windows' Paint program, image editing as become very cheap, and artists can experiment easily with a variety of color schemes, filters and special effects.For instance, utilizing various filters of Photos, many artists have created â€Å"vectored† designs in posters where a photographic image is socialized, sharpened, rendered into watercolors or stained glass effects or converted into bare lines with block colors. Other designs created soft or blurry styles, ripple or cascade effects and other special filters. Advertising[edit] Graphic design is used in advertising to announce a persuasive message by an identified sponsor; or a promotion by a firm of its products to its exi sting and potential customers.Egyptians used papyrus to make sales messages and wall posters. Commercial messages and political campaign displays have been found in the ruins of Pompeii and ancient Arabia. Lost and found advertising on papyrus was common in Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. Wall or rock painting for commercial advertising is another manifestation of an ancient advertising form, which is present to this day in many parts of Asia, Africa, and South America. [110] Advertising in the 19th century[edit] This advertising flier from 1806 is for a traditional medicine called Keynesian.Display in the Eddo Tokyo Museum. This is a 19th-century advertising poster for the hydrotherapy baths of Bagels De Loren (France). This is a playbill for Perhaps Opera Vocalists, 1856. This poster from the second half of the asses advertises for Buffalo Bill's Wild West show, advertising â€Å"Miss Annie Oakley, the peerless lady wing-shot†. Advertising in the early 20th century[edit] T his is a French poster for Deadbeat et Alleviate. The Deadbeat & Alleviate was a French automobile, manufactured in Lyon from 1894 to 1901.This is a German poster by Frizz Ream for Leafier Cigarettes (published 1896-1900) Hanson Troupe in the most astonishing mid-air achievements ever accomplished. † â€Å"Drink Coca-Cola SC†, an asses advertising poster showing a woman in fancy clothes (partially vaguely influenced by 16th- and 17th-century styles) drinking Coke. German Plastic, â€Å"Poster style†[edit] In the early 20th century, Germany became the cradle of many of the avian-garden art movements particularly for posters. This created the â€Å"Plastic† or â€Å"Poster style† movement. This movement became very influential and had a considerable impact n the graphic design for posters.Posters in this style would feature few but strong colors, a sharp, non-cluttered, minimal composition and bold, clear types. [111] Ludwig Howling[edit] Howling Kara te Corps Germanic Munched 1913. JPG Ludwig Howling was born in Germany in 1874. He was trained and practiced as an architect until 1906 when he switched to poster design. Hellion's adaptations of photographic images was based on a deep and intuitive understanding of graphical principles. His creative use of color and architectural compositions dispels any suggestion that he uses photos as a substitute for creative design. Or Requite Praline Tea c. 920-1926. Howling was born in the Rhine-Main region of Germany, though he and his work are associated with Munich and Bavaria in southern Germany. There were two schools of Cheeseburger's in Germany at the time, North and South. Hellion's high tonal contrasts and a network of interlocking shapes made his work instantly recognizable. Poster historian Lain We'll comments that â€Å"Howling was the most prolific and brilliant German posterior of the 20th century†¦ Beginning with his first efforts, Howling found his style with disconcert ing facility. It would vary little for the next forty years.The drawing was perfect from the start, nothing seemed alien to him, and in any case, nothing posed a problem for him. His figures are full of touches of color and a play of light and shade that brings them out of their background and gives them substance†[112] Lucian Bernhard[edit] With nothing to lose, Lucian Bernhard entered a poster contest for the Priest Match Company. The Judges, found this poster bizarre, and ignored it. However Ernst Growled, sales manager for Berlins leading proto-advertising agency and poster renter, saw the discarded poster and exclaimed: â€Å"This is my first prize.

The Determinants Of Corporate Operating Performance And Institutional Ownership Finance Essay - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 20 Words: 5892 Downloads: 9 Date added: 2017/06/26 Category Business Essay Type Research paper Did you like this example? Abstract Purpose The main purpose of this study is to explore the determinants of corporate operating performance and also determine the interrelations between corporate operating performance and institutional ownership structure. Design/methodology/approach Eight year period (2002-2009) panel data of 913 non-financial Malaysian companies listed in Main Board of the Bursa Malaysia was used. We conduct a multivariate analysis and used a combination of time-series and cross-section data. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "The Determinants Of Corporate Operating Performance And Institutional Ownership Finance Essay" essay for you Create order The Panel data analysis applied by using Eviews software to run two-stage least squares regression analysis due to generalized least square (GLS). Findings Number of all institutional ownership as one of governance variable and other fundamental variable such as leverage, growth, profitability, size, and risk are significant related with the firms operating performance. Moreover, the other two variables which are fraction of shares owned by five biggest institutional investors and liquidity are not significantly impact the firms performance. Practical implications These results provide Malaysian listed companies with an insight on how to increase their corporate control mechanisms so that improve their operating performance. These findings can also serve as a useful reference and guidelines for companies and the academics that concern to the future competitive decision making and competitive strategies for the companies. Originality/value These results confirm the previou s finding that there is significantly positive relation between operating cash flow return of non-financial Malaysian listed companies with the institutional ownership which represent the corporate governance and other fundamental variables. This study further used in order to improve the companys performance especially in operating performance. Introduction There are three forms of business enterprises, one of it is corporation. The corporation comprises three sets of distinct interest which are shareholders (the owners), the directors, and the corporation officers (the top management). Mostly, the companys direction, policies, and activities are controlled by the shareholders. The directors and top management will manage the operation of the company in the best interest of the shareholders. The expansion in the size and activities of corporate organization can cause the corporate managers to add their own interests or accrue benefits to themselves at the expense of their shareholders. To prevent this problem, the board of directors must ensure that the quality and mechanisms for monitoring corporate organizational activities should function effectively. If the company does not control properly, the interest of investors and creditors could be jeopardized. This different interest between shareholders and managers can result in agen cy problems for the company. Actually, there are several mechanisms can be used to reduce the agency problem. One of those mechanisms is through ownership structure. Khan et al. (2005) stated in the study that institutional investors have taken to issuing shareholder resolutions, described by Wilcox (2001) as the institutional owners most powerful tool for influencing corporate governance. Institutional investors have usually willing to increase their ownership in the firm, so that they can used right of the ownership to pressure managers to perform in the best interest of the shareholders. According to M. M Cornett et al. (2005), there has been an increase focus by regulators and researcher on role in the monitoring, disciplining, and influencing of corporate managers when the investors increase their ownership share in the firm. Therefore, concentrated ownership by institutions can increase managerial monitoring and thus improve corporate performance (McConnell and Servaes, 1990). In this study, firstly we examine the relationship between involvement of the institutional investor and the operating performance of the company, especially on how institutional ownership concentration and dispersion affect the performance of the operating activities. According to M.M. Cornett et al. (2007), they find that a significant relationship between firms operating cash flow returns and both the percent of institutional ownership and the number of institutional stockholders. And secondly, this study also contributes to observe the other determinants of operational performance in the Malaysian companies other than institutional ownership. In this case, we used several control variables which can affect the firms operating performance. This paper contributes to the Malaysian listed companies. Two motives support our research. First, our result of this study could have important policy-making implications. For example this study examines the determinants of the corporat e operating performance in Malaysian company through various factors that affect firms operating cash flow return. These could help the company increase their operating performance. Second, the study is likely to be interest to the investors, policyholders, and others concerned with corporate financial strength. In this study we also consider the ownership structure focus on institutional ownership as one of the factor that can affect operating performance. Empirical evidence suggesting a relationship between operating performance and institutional ownership could influence the business decisions of prospective investors and managers. Our study follows the research design of Aloke Goshs (2001) which takes operating cash flows to measure the operating performance of the company. However Aloke Goshs used operating cash flow to find the relationship of operating performance and corporate acquisition. As to the statistical method, panel data occur when observations are available with both a cross-sectional and a time-series dimension. We employ generalized least squares method to conduct the analysis. Using a sample of 928 non-financial Malaysian listed companies which are listed in Main Board of Bursa Malaysia during the eight year period 2002-2009, we find that the result support the hypothesis that the fraction of shares owned by five biggest institutional investors has impact on the corporate operating performance. However, the finding do not support for the view that the number of all institutional investor for Malaysian listed companies has impact on the firms operating performance. Furthermore, for the control variable that we used, all the variables are significantly related with the operating performance except the liquidity. The rest of this paper is presented as follows. Section 2 summaries the recent empirical evidence and hypothesis development concerning of the institutional ownership and operating performance. The research design, including the source of data, the methodology used and definition of the variable are described in Section 3. Section 4 present and discussed of the result of empirical study. And finally, in section 6 conclude the result of the study. Literature review and research proposition Several studies have been done to measuring corporate operating performance. Mostly, the study was being related with companys ownership structures. Demiralp et al. (2010) found new evidence that the monitoring activities from institutional ownership around public equity issues can benefit the company and it is likely to be especially important. Moreover, the improvements in operating performance are also associated with institutional monitoring during the beginning years of following the equity issue institutional investors have an informational advantage that enables them in identifying and investing in firm with better performance. The activity of institutional investor, like forced CEO turnover will also reveal the performance of the firm. For instance, based on Jensen and Murphy (2010), CEOs face pressures to keep open uneconomic factories, to keep the peace with labor unions despite the impact on competitiveness and to satisfy intense special interest pressures. Therefore, the most effective tools in supporting executive and shareholder interest are monetary compensation and stock ownership. Large companies and their shareholders will continue to suffer from poor performance until the directors recognize the importance of incentive and adopt compensation systems that truly link to pay and firm performance. Brickley et al. (2002) suggest that institutions that are less subject to management influence, such as mutual funds, foundations, and public-employee pension funds, are more likely to oppose management than banks, insurance companies, and trusts, which frequently derive benefits from lines of business under management control. Bhagat and Bolton (2008) found that stock ownership of board members can reflect better governance in such company, and separation of CEO-Chair is significant and positively correlated with better simultaneous and subsequent operating performance. Previous study also proved that large shareholders are active monitor in companies, and that direct shareholder monitoring helps boost the overall profitability of firms (Maher and Andersson, 1999). Agrawal and Knoeber (1996) suggested that cross- sectional OLS regressions of firm performance on single mechanisms may be misleading. They found the relationship between firm performance and four of the mechanism. Insider ownership was positively related to firm performance, while outsiders on the board, debt financing and corporate control activities were negatively related to the firm performance. Then, in the expanded OLS regression, the relationship between insider shareholding and firm performance disappeared but nothing else changed. In the simultaneous equations estimation, the effects of insider shareholding, firm debt, and corporate control activity all were statistically insignificant. Only the effect of outsiders on the board of directors persisted. This evidence also agreed by Gà ¼rbà ¼z et al. (2010) whereby there is positive influence of corporate governance and institutional ownership on financial performance. According to Brown and Caylor (n.d.) on corporate governance provisions that have recently been mandated by the three major U.S. stock exchanges but only one of them, nominating committee is comprised solely by independent outside directors, which is significant and positively associated to firm operating performance. The finding confirms that the corporate governance mandated by major U.S. stock exchanges are not more closely linked to firm operating performance than those are not so mandated. On the other hand, Ponnu (2008), by focusing on two governance parameters, board structure and CEO duality on firm performance, in the context of Malaysia is lacking. Using samples of large publicly traded Malaysian companies to examine the relationship between CEO duality and the proportion of independent directors on firm performance as measured by return on assets (ROA) and return on equity (ROE). Results show th at there is no significant relationship between corporate governance structures and company performance. In addition, Ming, Gee and Lee (n.d.) examine the impact of ownership structure on the corporate performance of Malaysian public-listed companies for period 2002 to 2004. They found that Malaysian companies are significantly different as compared to that which was found in earlier studies for American companies, whereby, insider and institutional equity shareholdings do not impact the corporate performance of Malaysian public-listed companies. In the case of Malaysia, since 2000, Malaysian companies had also failed to influence shareholder value creation. The declining of investors confidence in Malaysia was caused by poor corporate governance standards and a lack of transparency in Malaysian financial systems. The results suggest that institutional shareholders had failed in their monitoring role and corporate governance standards. Similar evidence represented by Farooq ue et al. (2007). They suggest that ownership does not have a significant impact on performance (Tobins Q or ROA). However, performance does appear to have a significant negative impact on ownership. Other than that, according Ping (2008) there is an inverse U-shaped relationship between insider ownership and corporate performance. There is significant and negative relationship between government institutional ownership and incorporated companies ownership to the corporate performance. Ping (2009) also added that the tremendous corporate performance means it is unlikely that shares promised by directors and supervisors will meet a situation in which there is a lacking assurance. Therefore, for the reason of improvement of management effectiveness and boost corporate performance, the directors and supervisors will be more willing to make an endeavor in monitoring the company. Demiralp et al. (2010) stated that obtaining the information of managerial effectiveness, means that in stitutional investor will bear the cost on it. As they have large quantity of shares, they can take advantage of the economies of scale in these costs. Moreover, if the institutional investors organize their activities to be more on governance, it will affect the significant enhancement in the corporate performance. However, from another viewpoint, where directors and managers have more shares mortgaged/pledged, they will be more determined to keep the companys share price through depraved means. This may bring to unsteady corporate performance. According to Cornett et al. (2007) there is relation linking the institutional investor participation in and the operating performance of large  ¬Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ rm. They found a important relation between firms operating cash flow returns and both the percent of institutional stock ownership and the number of institutional stockholders. These results confirm that institutional investors with impending business relations with the firms in which they invest are negotiated as monitors of the  ¬Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ rm. In addition, the empirical results in the paper lead us to validate a positive relation between measures of institutional investor concern and a firms operating cash flow returns. In addition, institutional investors are regularly seen as potentially one of the most vital agents to supervise firm management. However, the variety in their composition, outlooks and goals of these institutional owners result in considerable heterogeneity in their trading manners and their relationship to firm performance (Pallathitta, 2005). In this study, dependent variable that will be used to measure operating performance is operating cash flow which is similar with previous study Wong Shi Yang et al. (2009) and Ghosh (2001). According to Zeitun (2009) that investigates the performance and failure in Jordanian companies during 1989-2006. The empirical evidence in this paper shows that ownership structure and ownership conc entration play an important role in the performance and value of Jordanian firms. It shows that inefficiency is related to ownership concentration and to institutional ownership. Firms profitability ROA was negatively and significantly correlated with the fraction of institutional ownership, and positively and significantly related to the market performance measure. The paper also used ownership structure to predict the corporate failure. The results suggest that government ownership is negatively related to the likelihood of default. Furthermore, a certain degree of ownership concentration is needed to increase the firm chance of default. We adopt the term and schemes used in the literatures above and look at the corporate performance as a function of the number of institutional ownership and other supporting variables. Based on the recent evidence, we come out with the following research proposition: The corporate performance will be positively correlated with the number of institutional ownership in the company and the stockholdings percentage of biggest institutional investor. Methodology Data The data used for this study is non-financial Malaysian companies in eight years periods, during January 1, to 2002 to December 31, 2009. The sample period that we selected provides a focus figure in current economic with using the latest data of Malaysian companies. To enhance the accuracy of empirical results, the list samples used in this study are obtained from the companies which listed in which listed in Main Board of the Bursa Malaysia. Companies in the financial industry had been excluded because of their financial structure different from other industries. Moreover, companies which did not have complete data were also excluded in our sample study. All the data are collected from Datastream. This study has panel data which comprises of 913 companies. The number of effective observations totals 7304 (913 companies x 8 years) for our final analysis. Model In this study, we conduct a multivariate analysis to identify the factors that may influence the corporate o perating performance. The regression also includes the variables related to the corporate governance as an independent variable and a few control variables as determinants of operating performance of the company. We used a combination of time-series and cross-section data. The panel data analysis will be applied. Eviews software was used in this study to run two-stage least squares regression analysis due to generalized least square (GLS). The generalized least squares (GLS) multiple regression model as follow: OCF it = ÃÆ'Ã… ½Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ±0 + ÃÆ'Ã… ½Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ²1ln(NIOWNit-1) + ÃÆ'Ã… ½Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ²2FIOWNit-1 + ÃÆ'Ã… ½Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ²3PROFITit + ÃÆ'Ã… ½Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ²4LIQUIDit + ÃÆ'Ã… ½Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ²5GROWTHit + ÃÆ'Ã… ½Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ²6LEVit + ÃÆ'Ã… ½Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ²7ln(SIZEit ) + ÃÆ'Ã… ½Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ²8RISKit + ÃÆ'Ã… ½Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ µi Where: OCF = Cash flow from operating activities measure operating performance of the company as a dependent variable; NIOWN = ln (the number of institutional investors holding sto ck in firm) lagged one year; FIOWN = Fraction of shares of the firm owned by institutional investors (lagged one year); PROFIT = profitability of the firm; LIQUID = liquidity of the firm; GROWTH = growth of the company represented by percentage growth of total asset; LEV = leverage of the firm; SIZE = company size, measured by ln of total assets; RISK = business risk of the company; The dependent variable used is OCF. This variable is estimated by dividing the cash flow from operating activities to lagged of total assets. This approach is based on study of Wong Shi Yang et al. (2009). On that study, the writer used OCF as one of the control variable. However in our study, we used OCF as dependent variable to measure the sensitivity of operating performance of the company. ÃÆ'Ã… ½Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ±0 is the constant, which is assumed to be identical for all panel members. ÃÆ'Ã… ½Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ²1itÃÆ' ¢Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ¦.ÃÆ'Ã… ½Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ²8it are the parameter coefficients to be estimated. The notation ÃÆ'Ã… ½Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ µit represent an error term assumed to have a zero mean and constant variance. Variable Independent variable In this study, we include two corporate governance variables as an independent variable to find the relation between institutional investor involvement and the firms operating performance. There is a positive relation between measures of institutional investor involvement and firms operating cash flow performance (Cornett et al., 2006). Kee H. Chung and Hao Zhang (2008) measure firms institutional ownership by the ratio of number of shares held by institutional to the total number share outstanding. The independent variables which we used in this study are according to the study of Qiang Li et al. (2006). We used two variables to represent the institutional ownership, these variables are defined as follows: The number of institutional investors holding stock in firm (NIOWN): this variable was represented a s the total number of institutional investors in the institutional ownership structure (khan et al., 2004). Berle and Means (1932) stated that it accounts for the dispersion of ownership among institutional investors. Fraction of shares of the firm owned by institutional investors (FIOWN): this variable was measured as the percentage of equity owned by the largest institutional investor. Based on Thomsen and Pedersen (2000), previously in studied about the effectiveness of institutional investors in monitoring managers, this variable has been used as one of its measurement. Control variable Our primary focus is on the determinants of the firms operating performance. Previous empirical studies have adopted a variety of control benchmarks. It revealed that not only corporate ownership structure as one of the factors that can affect corporate performance but also board size, dividend payout ratio, advertising and RD expenditure rate, financial leverage (debt-equity ratio), ass et scale and asset growth rate (Lee Shin-Ping et al., 2008) .These are necessary control variables for our analysis: Profitability: We measure the firms profitability by return on assets (ROA). Other approaches usually used to measure the profitability of the company are earning per share (Qiang Li et al., 2006) and return on equity (Karake, Zeinab A., 1996). Liquidity (LIQUID): this variable was defined as cash and cash equivalent current assets over current liabilities. This measurement is based on study of Adams, M. B. et al. (2000) and Abe de Jong (2008). Growth of total assets (GROWTH): asset growth rate can be used to measure the growth opportunities of the companies. Based on Mak and Li (2001) and Chou (2002), a higher asset growth rate indicates that the company has more investment opportunities, so the rate will also be enhance accordingly and it also will affect the firms operating performance. We measure the growth by the percentage growth of total asset. Another way can be used, such as using Tobins Q (market value/assets; Wright et al., 1996) Leverage (LEV): financial leverage can be affected by firm-specific real characteristics that affect the supply curve of debt offered to the firm, or the firms demand for debt (Lee Shin-Ping et al., 2008). Leverage was measure as the ratio of total debt divided by total asset. Karake, Zeinab A. (1996) stated that other measurement of this variable is by ratio of total long-term debt to total assets. Company Size (lnSIZE): this variable was measure as the natural log of total assets. We can eliminate extreme values in the data using the logarithmic transformation (Adams, M. B. et al., 2000). Another approach to determine the company size is by using the logarithm of sales (Khan et al., 2004). Business Risk (RISK): Business risk is also used as one of the control variable of this study. Companys business risk is defined as standard deviation of operating income over the total assets during the sample period. The measurement of business risk of the company is based on the study of Abe de Jong (2008). Multiple regression analysis was used to test the main hypothesis of this study, employing the measure of OCF as the dependent variable, institutional ownership structure as independent variable and controlling for profitability, liquidity, growth, leverage, size, and business risk. Results and Findings Correlation between variables Table I represent the correlation among several variables used in the model. We need to find the correlation between them, especially independent variable, in order to ensure that there is no significant relation among them. This is because if there is high correlation between independent variable, the sample output might result insignificant value. As we can see from the Table I, the independent variable which is growth rate (%) as measured by total asset growth is significant and positively correlated with our dependent variable, operating performance, as measure of the cash flow from operating activities divided by lagged of total asset. The incremental of total asset in a firm to generate sales or revenue can increase the cash flow from operating activities (EBIT), then it can increase the net income to be distributed either to the shareholder as positive signal to them or retained for the investment activities of the firm. In contrast, th e relationship between operating performance with leverage and risk level is negative. High level of leverage can diminish the operating performance because the EBIT will be reduced by amount of interest paid to the bondholders and reduce the amount distributed to the shareholder. In common situation, the firms with very high debt level will provide negative signal to the potential investors. Table I: Correlation matrix between variable Correlation Probability OCF NIOWN FIOWN PROFIT LIQUID GROWTH LEV SIZE RISK OCF 1.000000  NIOWN 0.108811 1.000000 0.0000***  FIOWN -0.022532 0.184856 1.000000 0.1987 0.0000***  PROFIT 0.132623 0.016716 0.010492 1.000000 0.0000*** 0.3404 0.5496  LIQUID 0.030401 -0.027464 -0.020570 0.044656 1.000000 0.0829* 0.1172 0.2407 0.0108**  GROWTH 0.384884 0.095961 0.013815 0.028094 0.013683 1.000000 0.0000*** 0.0000*** 0.4307 0.1090 0.4351  LEV -0.147647 0.166759 0.036129 -0.180007 -0.237201 -0.007190 1.000000 0.0000*** 0.0000*** 0.0393** 0.0000*** 0.0000*** 0.6818  SIZE 0.133359 0.151981 -0.016191 0.125630 -0.101388 0.074725 0.040599 1.000000 0.0000*** 0.0000*** 0.3558 0.0000*** 0.0000*** 0.0000*** 0.0205**  RISK -0.021564 0.120459 0.036150 0.005453 -0.026012 -0.009433 0.158254 -0.135214 1.000000 0.2187 0.0000*** 0.0392** 0.7558 0.1379 0.5906 0.0000*** 0.0000***  Covariance Analysis: Ordinary Sample (adjusted): 2004 2009 Included observations: 3255 after adjustments Balanced sample (listwise missing value deletion) Notes: the statistics reported are the Pearson correlation coefficients between all variables used in tha analysis. *, ** and *** indicate corellation coefficient is significant at the 1%, 5% and 10% confidence level respectively. Descriptive statistics Table II shows the descriptive statistics of the operating performance for 913 companies listed and 3255 observations in Malaysia. As we can see in Table II, we find that the average fraction of all institutional ownership in Malaysian companies is quite lower as compared to companies in US, since the fraction of institutional ownership in Malaysia (18.17%) is triple lesser than in US (59.40%) as reported by Cornett et.al., (2007). Number of institutional investor in Malaysia shows the average of 0.4430. It means the companies in Malaysia have low average of inst itutional holding than Turkish companies that have highly concentration of ownership, which is 0.6201 (Arslan and Karan, 2006). In the fundamental variable, our study finds that the mean value of growth rate of companies in Malaysia during that period is 14.95%. It is sound to point out that Malaysia has favorable economic growth rate in that period. The average level of leverage in Malaysia which is ratio of total debt total assets is 24.35%. This is lower than the mean leverage ratio in Turkish companies, which is 52.07% (Arslan and Karan, 2006). Table II: Descriptive Statistics OCF (ratio) FIOWN (%) NIOWN (%) GROWTH (%) LEV (ratio) LIQUID (ratio) PROFIT (%) RISK (ratio) SIZE (RM MILL) Mean 0.0596 18.1788 0.4430 14.9477 0.2435 2.7435 3.9019 0.08871 2.2472 Median 0.0506 0.0000 0.0000 3.7900 0.2110 1.6890 4.3700 0.03951 0.2366 Max. 3.0085 99.000 29.0000 8990.5400 10.2730 99.1100 771.4500 10.9213 309.2460 Min. -1.0850 0.0000 0.0000 -99.1900 0.0000 0.0000 -137.3200 0.0002 0.0000 Std. Dev. 0.1351 26.4091 2.2226 223.1636 0.3009 3.9555 18.0280 0.4776 13.4158 Obser- vations 3255 3255 3255 3255 3255 3255 3255 3255 3255 Sample: 2002 2009 Liquidity is the ratio of current assets to current liability. We find that mean value of liquidity level in Malaysia is quite high, 2.7435. According to Mike and Adam (2000), high liquidity obviates the need for management to improve annual operating performance. However, high liquidity could increase the probability of higher agency costs for the owners by providing managers with incentives to misuse the excess cash flows by investing in project with negative net present value. Profitability ratio as measured by return on assets shows the mean value of 3.9019 on percentage points. During this period, Malaysian companies are favorable because the average risk level is quite low, 0.0887. Finally, the firm size is measured as adjusted natural logarithm of total assets. The average size of companies in Malaysia is 2.2472 mill denominated in Ringgit Malaysia. Table III presents the regre ssion output that examine whether the governance and other fundamental variables are associated with the firm operating performance in Malaysia. The regression above is estimated using generalized least squares. From Table II, we find that the type of institutional ownership variable has a significant impact on the firm operating performance. The coefficient on the number of institutional investor holding stock in the firm in Malaysia is significantly positive correlated, 0.002935, and significant at a better than a 1% significant level (t-statistic = 11.8769). The increase of the number of institutional investor would increase the firm operating performance by 0.29 percentage points. Our finding is consistent with the hypothesis that the number of pressure-insensitive institutional ownership (NIOWN) that is represented by the investment company holding in the firm has relationship with the firm operating performance. Moreover, the economic impact of percentage institutional o wnership is relatively important. Thus, we also need to measure whether the percentage of institutional investor has an impact on the firms operating performance. The coefficient on the fraction of institutional investor holding stock in the firm is insignificant and effectively zero, -0.000077 (t-statistic = -1.0715). Table III: Regression coefficient of operating performance Coefficient Std. Error t-Statistic Prob.  Ãƒâ€š NIOWN 0.0029 0.0002 11.8769 0.0000 FIOWN -7.73E-05 7.21E-05 -1.0715 0.2840 GROWTH 0.0002 1.53E-05 14.1964 0.0000 LEV -0.1282 0.0051 -25.0485 0.0000 LIQUID -9.69E-05 0.0001 -0.6716 0.5019 PROFIT 0.0003 7.47E-05 3.9049 0.0001 RISK 0.0048 0.0026 1.8897 0.0589 SIZE 0.0107 0.0007 16.2080 0.0000 C -0.0477 0.0074 -6.4285 0.0000 Weighted Statistics R-squared 64.62%   Ãƒâ€šÃ‚  Ãƒâ€šÃ‚  Ãƒâ€šÃ‚  Durb in-Watson stat 1.8875 Adjusted R-squared 64.49% S.E. of regression 0.1180 F-statistic 519.8852 Prob(F-statistic) 0.0000 Dependent Variable: OCF Method: Panel EGLS (Cross-section weights) Sample (adjusted): 2005 2009 Periods included: 5 Cross-sections included: 642 Total panel (unbalanced) observations: 2572 Iterate coefficients after one-step weighting matrix White cross-section standard errors covariance (d.f. corrected) Convergence achieved after 11 total coef iterations This result is contrary to the previous paper (e.g., M.M. Cornett et.al., 2007) and not consistent with the hypothesis that the fraction of institutional ownership (FIOWN) that is represented by the percentage of biggest institutional investor holding in the firm has relationship with the firm operating performance. Accordingly, the insignificant regression coefficients are not entirely surprising. This may reflect the fact that our sample includes only fir ms listed on Malaysian Stock Exchange. In this study, we also use other control variables (GROWTH, LEV, LIQUID, PROFIT, RISK and SIZE) that are based on fundamental measurement. From Table III, we can see that liquidity (LIQUID) is not significant. It means that liquidity level is not so much significant in explaining the firm operating performance. The other fundamental variables that are significant are LEV, GROWTH, PROFIT and SIZE. Firstly, leverage level has negative and significant relationship with the firm operating performance. The coefficient is -0.1282 at 1% level (t-statistic = -25.0485). The incremental in the leverage level of a firm decrease the firm operating performance by 0.1282 or 12.82% percentage points. This result is contrary with the agency cost hypothesis. The theory suggests that the choice of capital structure may help mitigate the agency costs. It means that high leverage ratio can reduce the agency cost of outside equity and increase firm value b y constraining or encouraging managers to act more in the interest of shareholders (Allen and Emilia, 2002). The greater portion of financial leverage will pressure the manager to work hard in order to entertain the interest of both bondholders and stockholders because they will be paid for that (incentives). Shortly, we can say that higher leverage can control the conflicts between shareholders and managers concerning the choice of investment and also improve the performance of the firms. However, the negatively significant coefficient is not entirely surprising because for high growth firm, normally exhibit a negative relationship between debt financing and performance (Kochhar, 1997). Moreover, high level of leverage also provides a negative signal to the investors. It means, when the leverage become higher, the expected cost of bankruptcy or financial distress will also be higher. Instead, it can raise the conflict between shareholders and bondholders. That is, according to Y ost (2002), stronger firm and industry performance in the period prior to restructuring increases the expected ability of the firm to generate future cash flows to service debt and decrease the probability. Therefore, managers need to control the optimum level of leverage in the company (Chung et.al., 2005). The second variable that significant in explaining the firm operating performance is growth that measures the growth of company. According to Table III, we find that the coefficient of growth level is positive, 0.0002, and significant at better than the 1% level (t-statistic = 14.1964). The increasing of growth level of the firm will increase the firms operating performance by 0.02 percentage points. The positive relation between growth rates to firm operating performance also has similar result with previous study done by Rahman and Limmack, 2004, on measurement of operating performance for corporate acquisition. They also found that rates of growth in operating assets ar e also significantly positive related to the firms performance. This might be due to the time period used, whereby in that period, Malaysia was one of the countries that have high rates of growth in the economy. The other control variables that is significant in explaining the operating performance is profitability level (PROFIT) that represented by return on asset of the company. The ROA is one of the indicators on how profitable a company is relative to its total assets (Investopedia, 2010). This is referred to as return on investment. For public companies, ROA can vary substantially and will be highly dependent on the industry. As we know that the assets of company are comprised of both debt and equity that will be used to fund the firm operation. The ROA figure gives investor an idea of how effectively the company is converting the money it has to invest into net income. The higher percentage of ROA is better. This is due to the company is earning more money on less invest ment. In this study, we find that coefficient of ROA (PROFIT), 0.0003 (t-statistic = 3.9049) that measure profitability is significant at 1% confidence level. Since it has positive relationship, the incremental of percentage of ROA will increase the operating performance by 0.0292 percentage points. This finding is consistent with the hypothesis that profitability will impact the overall firm performance. In this study, business risk is perceived as the firms exposure to uncertainty. It can lead to the changes in firm operating cash flow and performance. Moreover, developing or changing a firms operating activities from particular industry to another industry could affect its operating performance. Other than that, we could define the risk in different term. For instance, if the firm increases their sales, it would also face the business risk if it overproduces the product to the customer. But, if the management decides to increase the sales and the customers give positive respon se on that, it can benefit the company and enhance the operating performance. Our finding shows that risk level has significant value to impact the operating performance of a firm. This coefficient (0.0048) is significant at 10% confidence level (t-statistic = 1.8897). It gives us notation that the incremental in risk level of the Malaysian companies will increase firm operating performance by 0.48 percentage points. Finally, the size of company shows positive, 0.0106 (t-statistic = 16.2080) and significant at 1% confidence level. Table III shows that the incremental of company size by 1% will increase its performance by 1.06 percentage points. This finding is contrary with many previous papers (e.g., Cornett et.al., 2007) which suggest that size of company would not so much impact on the performance. Table IV presents the regression of performance on governance and fundamental characteristics. By adopting Ozkan (2002), firstly, we run regression for model (1). Model (1) inclu des all variables whereas in the model (2), we exclude the variable that has insignificant coefficient. The adjusted R-squared for model (1) is 64% whereas 60% for model (2). The parameter estimated and test statistic for significant variables show almost similar result in both models and hence the in the following discussion the result of Model (1) will be used. This means 64% of the firm operating performance is explained by the corporate governance and other fundamental variables. The remaining is unexplained because there are other variable that might influence the firms operating performance. Table IV: Regression of performance on governance and fundamental characteristics Independent variable Model (1) Model (2) Number of ins. owner 0.0029*** (11.8768) 0.0032*** (11.1273) Fraction of ins. investor -0.000077 (-1.0715) Growth 0.0002*** (14.1964) 0.0002*** (11.8712) Leverage -0.1282*** (-25.0485) -0.1172*** (-32.3343) Liquidity -0.0001 (-0.6716) Profit 0.0003*** (3.9049) 0.0002*** (3.7418) Risk 0.0048* (1.8897) 0.0060** (2.4616) Size 0.0107*** (16.2080) 0.0099*** (20.2672) R2 64% 60% This methodology is similar with Ozkan (2002) and Arslan and Karan (2006) and using the lagged variables helps to ease the endogeneity problems. This study confirms our hypothesis and previous finding that there is significantly positive relation between a firm operating cash flow return and the number of institutional stock ownership (pressure-insensitive). In means concentration of corporate ownership could impact the operating performance for Malaysian listed companies. However, we also find that percentage of larger institutional investors is not significantly impact the operating performance for Malaysian listed companies. In addition, institutional investors are often seen as potentially one of the most important agents to monitor firm management. However, the diversity in their compo sition, attitudes and goals of these institutional owners result in considerable heterogeneity in their trading behavior and their relationship to firm performance (Pallathitta, 2005). Summary and Conclusion This study tests empirically the determinants of corporate operating performance of Malaysian listed companies in a viewpoint of institutional ownership. The fraction of shares owned by biggest institutional investor and number of all institutional investor in the company are the corporate governance variables and also completed by other fundamental variable that support the structured model in this study. There is also considerable to support the hypothesis that the number of all institutional investor has impact on the corporate operating performance. However, the findings do not support for the view that fraction of shares owned by five biggest institutional investors for Malaysian listed companies have impact on the firms operating performance. Moreover, the study also finds that there are others fundamental variables that affect the operating performance. Level of leverage has negative and significant relationship with the firm operating performance. This result is contrary with the agency cost hypothesis that suggest higher leverage can control the conflicts between shareholders and managers concerning the choice of investment and also improve the performance of the firms. However, the negatively significant coefficient is not entirely surprising because for high growth firm, normally exhibit a negative relationship between debt financing and performance. For the growth rate, we find that the coefficient of growth level is positive. The positive relation between growth rates to firm operating performance also has similar result with previous study done by Rahman and Limmack, 2004. Then, coefficient of ROA (PROFIT), 0.0003 (t-statistic = 3.9049) that measure profitability is significant at 1% confidence level. This finding is consistent with the hypothesis that profitability will impact the overall firm performance. The coefficient of business risk is perceived as the firms exposure to uncertainty. It gives us notation that the incremental in ri sk level of the Malaysian companies will increase firm operating performance by 0.48 percentage points. Finally, the size of company shows positive, 0.0106 (t-statistic = 16.2080) and significant at 1% confidence level. Table III shows that the incremental of company size by 1% will increase its performance by 1.06 percentage points. This finding is contrary with many previous papers (e.g., Cornett et.al., 2007) which suggest that size of company would not so much impact on the performance. In addition, further study on this issue is needed because still there is insignificant relation between number of institutional ownership and corporate operating performance. This awaits future research.

Descartes Dreaming Argument And The Demon Argument

In this essay, I will explore and analyse Descartes’ dreaming argument and his evil demon argument. I will assess both arguments taking into account their validity and soundness whilst also considering the objections that one may have. In order to weigh up these arguments, it is important to understand Descartes’ reasons for formulating them: Descartes’ believes that it is important to be certain of the things that one believes to be true which, in turn, causes him to question the things that he has been certain of thus far. Because of this, he forms these arguments to further consider his theories about doubt and what it is to be truly certain of anything. The dreaming argument is a product of Descartes’ First Meditations in which he†¦show more content†¦While it can be said that premise 1 is true, many people disagree strongly with premise 2. Descartes claims that we cannot be certain that we are not dreaming, but our dreaming experiences and our waking experiences are dissimilar. 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What is Henna Essay - 1002 Words

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