Metaphors we discriminate by: Naturalized themes in Austrian newspaper articles about asylum seekers

With specific reference to the use of metaphor in Austrian newspaper reports on the arrival of Kurdish asylum seekers in Italy in January 1998, this study suggests ways in which cognitive metaphor theory can be given a stronger socio-political dimension. The dominant metaphors portray the asylum seekers as water, as criminals, or as an invading army. The repeated use of these themes in relatively fixed lexical and syntactic forms and across all the newspapers seems to indicate that they have become accepted as the 'natural' way of describing the situation. It will be argued that the 'naturalization' of particular metaphors can contribute to a blurring of the boundaries between the literal and the non-literal.     

Measuring emotional intelligence in Moroccan Arabic: the Wong and Law Emotional Intelligence Scale / Medidas de la inteligencia emocional en árabe marroquí: la escala de inteligencia emocional de Wong y Law

Emotional intelligence is a widespread concept that has been analysed in different countries. However, it has been barely measured in African-Arab societies’ cultures due to their scarce tradition in validating instruments. In Morocco, the mere translation of instruments is a common practice that should be avoided to incorporate cultural and linguistic singularities. Thus, the aim of our study was to culturally adapt the Wong and Law Emotional Intelligence Scale to Morocco. This version could be widely used in other Arab North African countries and among immigrants in hosting countries. Two hundred and seventy-three Arab undergraduates (178 women and 95 men; age M = 22.17, SD = 4.09) from Morocco completed a questionnaire adapted to their culture following the back translation method. To determine construct validity, data were analysed by means of confirmatory factor analysis. The final scale resulted in a second-order factorial model with four first-order factors compounded by 16 items. This structure supports the original for Moroccan Arabic and other countries in which Arabic is spoken. Likewise, the results confirm an adequate criterion validity of the instrument.     

Acceptance Sampling Based on Truncated Life Tests in the Birnbaum Saunders Model

We develop acceptance sampling plans assuming that the life test is truncated at a preassigned time. The lifetimes of the test units are assumed to follow the Birnbaum Saunders distribution. The minimum sample size necessary to ensure the specified average life is obtained and the operating characteristic values of the sampling plans and producer's risk are presented. An illustrative example is given.     

The governance role of multiple large shareholders: evidence from the valuation of cash holdings

This paper investigates the governance role of multiple large shareholders (MLS, henceforth), as evidenced by their impact on the valuation of cash holdings. For a sample of 2,723 firms from 22 countries, we find that the presence of MLS enhances the valuation of firms’ cash holdings. In particular, we show that the valuation of cash is positively associated with an even distribution of blockholders’ voting rights and with higher contestability of the largest shareholder’s control. We also show that the impact of MLS on the valuation of cash holdings is more pronounced for family-controlled firms, consistent with investors perceiving family owners as associated with greater expropriation risk. Overall, our results contribute to the literature on corporate governance by showing that MLS improve internal monitoring and moderate the agency costs of firms’ cash holdings.     

Understanding the Elusive Black Box of Dynamic Capabilities

A major challenge for managers in turbulent environments is to make sound decisions quickly. Dynamic capabilities have been proposed as a means for addressing turbulent environments by helping managers extend, modify, and reconfigure existing operational capabilities into new ones that better match the environment. However, because dynamic capabilities have been viewed as an elusive black box, it is difficult for managers to make sound decisions in turbulent environments if they cannot effectively measure dynamic capabilities. Therefore, we first seek to propose a measurable model of dynamic capabilities by conceptualizing, operationalizing, and measuring dynamic capabilities. Specifically, drawing upon the dynamic capabilities literature, we identify a set of capabilities—sensing the environment, learning, coordinating, and integrating—that help reconfigure existing operational capabilities into new ones that better match the environment. Second, we propose a structural model where dynamic capabilities influence performance by reconfiguring existing operational capabilities in the context of new product development (NPD). Data from 180 NPD units support both the measurable model of dynamic capabilities and also the structural model by which dynamic capabilities influence performance in NPD by reconfiguring operational capabilities, particularly in higher levels of environmental turbulence. The study's implications for managerial decision making in turbulent environments by capturing the elusive black box of dynamic capabilities are discussed.     

Residual Responses to Change Patterns of Autocorrelated Processes

This article studies the residual behaviour of various stationary processes in the presence of change patterns. Three types of change patterns are considered, Additive Outliers, Innovative Outliers and Level Shift. The knowledge of the residual behaviour is important for monitoring production processes. A new method of residual process control is proposed, the patterns chart. In addition to the advantage of detecting change patterns, it distinguishes their nature. The patterns chart's performance is compared to the performance of the special causes control (SCC) chart based on average run length. The results show that the proposed method performs better than a SCC chart. A real case study illustrates that the patterns chart has all the desirable properties of a SCC chart and it overcomes the negative ones.     

Resampling for Order Estimation of Autoregressive Models with Missing Data

In this article, we consider the order estimation of autoregressive models with incomplete data using the expectation–maximization (EM) algorithm-based information criteria. The criteria take the form of a penalization of the conditional expectation of the log-likelihood. The evaluation of the penalization term generally involves numerical differentiation and matrix inversion. We introduce a simplification of the penalization term for autoregressive model selection and we propose a penalty factor based on a resampling procedure in the criteria formula. The simulation results show the improvements yielded by the proposed method when compared with the classical information criteria for model selection with incomplete data.     

On a theorem of graybill

Graybill (1976) gives a theorem for testing variance components in balanced random models. Unfortunately, the theorem does not hold true. We pin down the reason that causes the theorem to fail and give a correct version of it.