beSMART

ADOPTION OF ONLINE BANKING IN MANILA: WHAT THE COMMERCIAL BANKS SHOULD LEARN TO BE COMPETITIVE

Edralin C. Lim

The researcher conducted a survey consisting of 200 online banking users and non-users in Manila.  The sample represented the profile of the respondents based on gender, age, civil status and education. This research examined which factors affected the acceptance of online banking in the Philippines and used factor analysis and multiple regression analysis to study the relationship. The results of the study showed that determinants such as perceived usefulness and perceived easy to use positively affected the intent to use online banking. This research recommended that learning the determinants affecting the intention to use online banking is important to the commercial banks to make them competitive in the banking industry.  

E-Banking; Online Banking; Online Adoption

ANALYSIS AND SOCIO-ECONOMIC DETERMINANTS OF TECHNOLOGY CONSUMPTION: IVS STUDENTS

Filiz KADI, Elif KIRAN

Consumption culture is one of the highly debated topics in almost all study areas. Its initiative motives date back to the birth of mass production that started with the Industrial Revolution and urged producers to look for new markets. The emergence of new markets not only increased consumption but also caused changes in consumption habits and culture. These alterations have gone beyond borders in time and outspread throughout today’s world that is portrayed as a global village. A distinctive amount of studies have been conducted on this subject in several fields.
Accordingly, the high-speed spread of technology and the fact that it is accessible by almost each individual in a society has increased its consumption, too.  The group of university students is one of the ones that are highly affected by these new trends. For that reason, technology consumption of university students will be the focus in this study. The socio-economic factors that are effective on technology consumption of Fatih University Vocational School students will be determined via a questionnaire.

Consumption, technology consumption, university students

CORPORATE GOVERNANCE AND ECONOMIC PERFORMANCE IN
ITALIAN LISTED FIRMS

Simona Alfiero, Silvana Secinaro and Francesco Venuti

The goal of the research is about the possibility to find a relationship between corporate governance and economic performances through the analysis of the impact of some governance elements (like directors gender, dependent/independent and executive/non-executive directors, number of other offices, etc) over the economic performance and financial structure of the firms. Through the use and the analysis of a simple instrument like the Pearson Correlation Coefficient we tried to find out any possible assessment of correlation among the examined variables.
The research analyses data from 148 Italian Companies (i.e. listed on the Italian Stock Exchange) for five years (2006-2010). In order to dig deeper in the analysis, we divided the firms of the sample in sectors of activity. Inside each sector we analysed the economic performance and we compared the single firm with the average values of the sector. Inside each sector we expect to find a higher level of homogeneity, with positive effect over the correlation between the variables considered.
The first conclusion is that if the sample as a whole present too high levels of variability that do not present clear correlation evidence, considering sectors some evidence may appear. At least we could say which are the variables that requires more attention.

Corporate governance, Economic Performance, Ownership Structure.

CONCEPT MAP CONSTRUCTION FROM E-COMMERCE WEB PAGES

Graziella M. Caputo and Nelson F. F. Ebecken

Given the broad range of products and services offered by the companies, the choice of a specific item becomes a very arduous task. To decide on which item best meets the needs, it would be necessary to first know the background all the items available in the market and the technical details that surround them. This task, however, may be complex because the large number of choices and the limited knowledge of the customer. Therefore, this study aims to use information extraction mechanisms to better organize the details of products and services, creating simplified  concept maps. Concept maps are mainly used in the learning process and therefore can offer tips that streamline mental absorption of knowledge. Much has been studied about automatic and semi-automatic construction of maps. In the present study, we applied text mining and natural language processing techniques to extract concepts and their relationships, to generate maps and maps comparisons.

Information Extraction, Conceptual Map, Natural Language Processing Knowledge management, Knowledge creation, Knowledge acquisition, Knowledge capture, Knowledge sharing.

IMPACT OF BALANCED SCORECARD USAGE ON THE PERFORMANCE OF COMMERCIAL BANKS

Denis Simon Ombuna, Dr. Karim Omido, Hamadi Musa Garashi, Odhiambo Odera and Ochieng Okaka

The study sought to examine the impact of balance scorecard usage on the performance of commercial banks in Kenya. The study location was in Nakuru District, Kenya where a census research design was adopted. Convenient sampling was utilized to select 72 respondents from 18 commercial banks in Nakuru. A likert scale was employed to gauge the degree of response in terms of strength or weakness on a scale of one to five. Descriptive statistics was employed to analyze the data and Pearson’s correlation was utilized to test the relationship between two or more variables. The study concludes that the effectiveness of BSC usage lies on the organizations dynamics, execution, monitoring and evaluation procedures adopted. It is recommended that for banks to become more competitive and satisfy the needs of customers they need to develop products and services that have competitive advantage.

Balanced scorecard, performance, commercial banks

PORTFOLIO RISK MANAGEMENT WITH FINANCIAL STATISTICS APPLIED TO STOCK MARKET DATA

Hasina Nargis and Md Hasinur Rahaman Khan

In this paper we present a systematic strategy of using statistical techniques for analysing investment in shares. We explore the building of efficient portfolios through optimization using real stock market data for three private limited companies in UK, Vodafone, Barclays and Next. We examine how basic statistical tools can assist an investor in diversifying his or her risk. Monthly historical data of shares for the five years from January 2006 to December 2010 are used for this analysis. Investing in stock markets bears some risk depending on the variance and return of the stock. We discuss the relationship between the average return and risk and also discuss how to minimize the risk of the portfolio. It appears that the Barclays is more riskier for investment than the other two companies. We also discuss why diversification works by identifying the efficient frontier and by constructing the portfolio possibilities curve. This study will assist investors in making more informed decisions regarding investing in stocks.

Frontier, Portfolio, Return, Risk, Stock