No abstract

For many years, scalable routing for wireless communication systems was a compelling but elusive goal. Recently, several routing algorithms that exploit geographic information (e.g., GPSR) have been proposed to achieve this goal. These algorithms refer to nodes by their location, not address, and use those coordinates to route greedily, when possible, towards the destination. However, there are many situations where location information is not available at the nodes, and so geographic methods cannot be used. In this paper we define a scalable coordinate-based routing algorithm that does not rely on location information, and thus can be used in a wide variety of ad hoc and sensornet environments.

This study replicates the Chrisman, Chua, Sharma 1998 Canadian study in the Indian context. Using data from 43 Indian family firms, this study compares the successor attributes that Indian and Canadian family business owners consider most important. Despite significant differences in norms and culture prevalent in these two countries, results of this comparative study indicate that both sets of family firm owners rate integrity and commitment to the business as the two most important attributes of a successor. However, compared to Canadian family firm owners, Indian owners rate blood and family relationships higher. Canadian respondents, on the other hand, rate interpersonal skills, past performance, and experience higher.

Purpose -Commercial and Islamic banks are important players in the UAE financial market. However, little is known about their financial distress because these financial institutions usually resolve financial distress within their own organisations, which means that outsiders cannot explicitly observe distress. The purpose of the research is therefore to identify the main drivers of financial institutions' financial distress. Design/methodology/approach -The paper estimates a probability distress prediction model using the BankScope Database and the annual reports of UAE financial institutions submitted to UAE Security Exchange Authority. The paper also analyses the impact of macroeconomic information for forecasting financial institutions' financial distress. Findings -The fundamentals of financial institutions in terms of cost income ratio, equity to total assets, total asset growth and ratio of loan loss reserve to gross loans (all these variables with a lag of one year) positively impacted the probability of financial distress in the next year. Recent findings for emerging economies have cast some doubt on the usefulness of macroeconomic information for financial institutions' risk assessment. Similar results are found for UAE financial institutions in predicting the probability of financial distress. Originality/value -This is the first study to provide empirical evidence on the drivers of financial distress of commercial and Islamic banks in UAE during 2000-2008, and to examine the extent of the financial distress that can be can be attributed to internal bank-specific fundamental factors and external factors in the economy.

No abstract

No abstract

PurposeThis study sets out to analyze the efficiency and productivity issues of the insurance sector from both the policymakers' and investors' points of view to insulate the business and financial risks of UAE corporate houses.Design/methodology/approachThe paper uses two inputs of “administrative and general expenses”, and “equity and change in legal reserves”, versus two outputs of rate of “return on investments” and “liquid asset to total liabilities ratio” to assess the allocative efficiency of the companies using DEA. Using the the Malmquist productivity index the efficiency is broken down into technical and scale efficiency to evaluate the performance of the insurers.FindingsWhile the scale of operation of insurers is, by and large, acceptable, there is a considerable degree of managerial inefficiency among the insurers, with the least efficiency in 2000, and higher efficiency in 2004. Further, the insurers on average achieved a mere 0.8 percent annual gain in total factor productivity over the period in question.Research limitations/implicationsThe data set is narrow with 19 insurers in the region, which is the limitation.Practical implicationsThe results have policy implications for the regulators and managerial implications for the existing insurers to face the growing competition in the region.Originality/valueThis is the first study to investigate the productivity changes of insurance sector operations in a developing economy: the UAE in the Middle‐East region. The study findings help the insurers to take appropriate managerial steps to improve the efficiency of their operations.

This paper analyzes simultaneity and endogeneity of ERM and Corporate Governance. It assesses quantitative relationship between Corporate Governance, ERM and value of the firm. The research results provide quantitative justifications for the boards to make investments in ERM and Corporate Governance initiatives for improved shareholder wealth.  3SLS-IV system modelling was applied on 2004-11 data of Gulf Cooperation Council financial institutions. Our research confirms the simultaneity and endogeneity of Corporate Governance, ERM and Firm Value determinants. Firm value is jointly and positively impacted by ERM & Corporate Governance initiatives although the impact was less significant. Unexpectedly, ERM initiative was significantly and negatively impacted by determinants such as intangibility, and profitability. Firm size was the only determinant that showed significant and positive impact on firm value. Relative to UAE the corporate governance mechanism was active in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Oman firms. Further, the existence of audit committees in the GCC firm’s boards and ERM adoption significantly positively impacted the corporate governance by 3.42% and 1.7239% respectively. Keywords: Corporate Governance, Enterprise Risk Management, Firm Value, Simultaneity, Endogeneity, Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) economies. JEL codes: C15, C21, C51, D57, F30, G21, G32, G34, K22, L21, M31, M41, N25, O16