Maran Marimuthu

Diversity on Corporate Boards and Firm Performance: An Empirical Evidence from Malaysia

This study examines the relationship between gender diversity among corporate board and firms’ financial performance using 100 non-financial companies in Malaysia. This study uses data from 2009 to 2013. Return on equity measures the financial performance. Gender diversity measured by the number of females on board. This study incorporates descriptive statistics, correlation testing, and regression analysis. However, the results of gender diversity have a positive impact on performance (ROE).

Demographic diversity and firm value: A review on large companies using panel data approach

This paper examines the demographic diversity at top-level management and its impact on firm performance. The paper focuses on Upper-echelon theory, which explains board characteristics and firm performance. Theoretical framework is specially designed using concepts, measures and models. Relevant hypotheses are developed to test diversity impact with the use of appropriate variables and measures. A total sample of large 60 top listed companies are considered based on their market capitalization. This empirical work uses BODs attributes and financial data, which are gathered over the period 2009 to 2013. This study incorporates econometrics methodology on panel data analysis, which is used rigorously for hypothesis testing. The results indicate that demographic diversity at board level does have a relationship with market value.

Hybridization of Ensemble Kalman Filter and Non-linear Auto-regressive Neural Network for Financial Forecasting

Financial data is characterized as non-linear, chaotic in nature and volatile thus making the process of forecasting cumbersome. Therefore, a successful forecasting model must be able to capture long-term dependencies from the past chaotic data. In this study, a novel hybrid model, called UKF-NARX, consists of unscented kalman filter and non-linear auto-regressive network with exogenous input trained with bayesian regulation algorithm is modelled for chaotic financial forecasting. The proposed hybrid model is compared with commonly used Elman-NARX and static forecasting model employed by financial analysts. Experimental results on Bursa Malaysia KLCI data show that the proposed hybrid model outperforms the other two commonly used models.

Conceptual framework of sustainable corporate entrepreneurship

Recently corporate entrepreneurship (CE) is getting considerable attention amongst researchers, especially in the developed economies. Looking at the significance of CE, research communities from the developing countries are also paying substantial attention towards corporate entrepreneurship. The literature has evolved from entrepreneurship to corporate entrepreneurship and is now moving towards sustainable corporate entrepreneurship. Initially, it was considered that corporate entrepreneurship had three main dimensions, such as innovativeness, proactiveness and risk taking. Later, competitive aggressiveness and autonomy were also introduced as corporate entrepreneurship dimensions. It has been observed that these dimensions play an important role in the economic growth for large businesses. Similarly, sustainability has also been getting attention, after it had been emphasised in modern literature and by various international organisations. Sustainability covers social, environmental and economic issues, thus recommending the importance of both corporate entrepreneurship and sustainability. This study aims to propose a framework of sustainable corporate entrepreneurship and firm performance for Malaysian public listed firms. This proposed framework can be generalised to apply to other countries. Sustainability has been incorporated with corporate entrepreneurship. In order to measure the entrepreneurial activities, this framework proposes firm performance as a dependent variable for a sustainable corporate entrepreneurship framework.