Rami Zeitun

Team Satisfaction and Student Group Performance: A Cross-Cultural Study

The authors examined the relationship between team satisfaction and students’ performance in group projects in two universities, one from the United States and one from Qatar. The results showed that there is a significant positive correlation between team satisfaction and group performance only for the American students. Demographic factors such as gender, employment, course level, course subject, and group gender were partially significant in influencing students’ responses. American students performed better than Qatari students, but they were less satisfied with their team members. These differences may be attributed to the cultural dissimilarities between the American and the Qatari students; thus, students’ cultural backgrounds should be considered when forming groups.

Dynamic performance, financial leverage and financial crisis: evidence from GCC countries

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of financial leverage on firm’s performance in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. Additionally, this paper investigates the impact of recent financial crisis on GCC firms. Design/methodology/approach – The authors argue that the firm’s performance has a dynamic relationship that cannot be measured in cross-sectional data. Hence, the authors use a panel data to examine the effect of financial leverage on firm’s performance using the dynamic Generalised Method of Moments (GMM) estimator. Findings – The results from the GMM estimator show that companies’ leverage is a significant determinant of firm’s performance in GCC countries. The authors also found that financial crisis had a negative and significant impact on firms’ performance in GCC countries. Research limitations/implications – First, the data used in this paper rely on information published by the firms, and therefore, the robustness of the results were limited by the accuracy...

Governance and long-term operating performance of family and non-family firms in Australia

Purpose - – The purpose of this study is to conduct a comparative analysis of the long-term operating performance of family and non-family firms from the agency theoretic perspective. The analysis is focused on investigating the impact of family ownership on principal–agent conflicts of interest. Design/methodology/approach - – This paper examines the relationship between firm operating performance and family ownership for a large sample of 677 Australian-listed companies. The paper uses the Generalised Method of Moments (GMM) estimator model developed by Arellano and Bond (1991) and used by other studies in finance (Baltagi, 2012; Bond, 2002; Mohamed Findings - – The empirical results show that firms with ownership concentration has a better operating performance due to the alignment of owner-management interests. This study also finds that family-listed companies have higher survival rates and perform better than non-family companies. Findings support the hypothesis that agency costs arise as a result of privileged access of information and self-interest behaviour of managers (outsiders) in firms with dispersed ownership structures. Originality/value - – Earlier studies have only focused on short-term perspectives, particularly investigating small and medium types of Australian family businesses from narrow aspects, such as productivity, business behaviour, capital structure and leverage. Therefore, this paper has conducted a comparative examination of family and non-family firms listed on the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) to identify the impact of agency costs on their financial performance.

Ownership Structure and Corporate Performance: Evidence from Qatar

This study examines the effect of different dimensions of ownership structure in corporate performance. The data that is used in this study includes 29 non-financial firms listed on the Qatar Exchange during the period of 2006-2011. The different dimensions of ownership structures that are included in the study are: board ownership, concentrated ownership, foreign ownership, and institutional ownership. In addition, firm performance is estimated by three measures: Tobin’s Q, ROA, and ROE. The two regression models that are used to test the effects of ownership structure and firm performance are the panel data regression model and linear regression model. The empirical evidence in this study shows that concentrated ownership, board ownership and foreign ownership have a positive effect on firm performance. Furthermore, the board ownership has a positive and significant relationship with ROA and ROE, whereas concentrated ownership has a positive and significant effect on ROA, ROE and Tobin’s Q. On the other hand, institutional ownership has a negative significant effect on Tobin’s Q.

Global financial crisis, ownership structure and firm financial performance: An examination of listed firms in Australia

This paper aims to investigate the financial performance of listed firms on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) over two sample periods (1998-2007 and 2008-2010) before and during the global financial crisis periods.,The generalized method of moments (GMM) has been used to examine the relationship between family ownership and a firm’s performance during the financial crisis period, reflecting on the higher risk exposure associated with capital markets.,Applying firm-based measures of financial performance (ROA and ROE), the empirical results show that family firms with ownership concentration performed better than nonfamily firms with dispersed ownership structures. The results also show that ownership concentration has a positive and significant impact on family- and nonfamily-owned firms during the crisis period. In addition, financial leverage had a positive and significant effect on the performance of Australian family-owned firms during both periods. However, if the impact of the crisis by sector is taking into account, the financial leverage only becomes significant for the nonmining family firms during the pre-crisis period. The results also reveal that family businesses are risk-averse business organizations. These findings are consistent with the underlying economic theories.,This paper contributes to the debate whether the ownership structure affects firms’ financial performance such as ROE and ROA during the global financial crisis by investigating family and nonfamily firms listed on the Australian capital market. It also identifies several influential drivers of financial performance in both normal and crisis periods. Given the paucity of studies in the area of family business, the empirical results of this research provide useful information for researchers, practitioners and investors, who are operating in capital markets for family and nonfamily businesses.

On the relative efficiency of conventional and Islamic banks: a DEA-window approach

This paper explores the relative efficiency of 65 conventional and Islamic banks in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region using the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) over the period from 2002 to 2010. The empirical results suggest that the proposed input variables are significantly related to the output variables and that the input and output combinations impact the efficiency scores of both Islamic and conventional banks. The results from the Constant Return to Scale (CRS) and Variable Return to Scale (VRS) procedures in three out of five DEA models suggest that Islamic banks are significantly less efficient than conventional banks. Results from the remaining two DEA indicate no significant differences in the efficiency status of these banks.

Banking Concentration and Financial Stability. New Evidence from Developed and Developing Countries

In this paper, we analyze the relationship between banking concentration and financial stability for a sample of 156 developed and developing countries during the period 1980–2011. Our study first examines the direct effect of banking concentration on financial stability. The results provide evidence that concentration does not directly affect the stability of the financial system. The study also investigates two indirect channels and finds that concentration has a positive and stabilizing impact on financial stability through the profitability channel and a negative and destabilizing impact through the interest rate channel. When considering the level of development across countries, our results support the existence of a stabilizing effect of concentration on financial stability and the absence of a destabilizing interest channel for developing countries. Interestingly, our results also indicate that concentration has a direct and indirect effect on financial stability during crisis periods, but no direct effect on financial stability during normal periods.

Ownership Structure, Corporate Performance and Failure: Evidence from Emerging Market; Panel Data Analysis

This study investigates the impact of ownership structure (mix and concentrate) on a companys performance and failure in a panel estimation using 167 Jordanian companies during 1989-2006. The empirical evidence in this paper shows that ownership structure and ownership concentration 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. A negative correlation between ownership concentration and firms performance both, ROA and Tobins Q, is found, while there is a positive impact on firm performance MBVR. The research also found that there is a significant negative relationship between government ownership and a firms accounting performance, while the other ownership structure mixes have significant coefficients only in Tobins Q using the matched sample. Firms profitability ROA was negatively and significantly correlated with the fraction of institutional ownership, and positively and significantly related to the market performance measure, MBVR. The result is robust when indicators of both concentration and ownership mix are included in the regressions. The results of this study are, to some extent, inconsistent with previous findings. This paper also used ownership structure to predict the corporate failure. The results suggest that government ownership is negatively related to the likelihood of default. Government ownership decreases the likelihood of default, but has a negative impact on a firms performance. The results suggest that, in order to increase a firms performance and decrease the likelihood of default, it is reasonable to reduce government ownership to some extent. Furthermore, a certain degree of ownership concentration is needed to increase the firms performance and to decrease the firms chance of default.