• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.7 no.8
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• pp.233-246
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• 2020

This paper investigates the effect of the involvement of the board chairman in the audit committee (AC) on earnings management (EM). It examines Bursa Malaysia-listed companies with the lowest positive earnings for the years 2013 to 2015. The Modified Jones Model by Kasznik (1999) was used to determine discretionary accruals. An AC that includes its board chairman as an ordinary member is associated with greater discretionary accruals. However, a board chairman who is also the chairman of the AC does not seem to influence discretionary accruals. This paper supports the agency theory and policy-makers' efforts to prevent board chairmen from sitting on ACs. It is the first study that uses the agency theory to describe the association between the board chairman's involvement in the both AC and EM. This study alerts policy-makers, stakeholders and researchers to the influence of a board chairman serving on the AC in curbing EM. Furthermore, it provides empirical evidence that the majority of Malaysian companies whose board chairmen are involved in the AC appoint the chairman as an ordinary member of the AC. This indicates that executive directors may affect such actions. Hence, more policies are needed to improve AC independence.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute Of Construction Engineering and Management
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• 2007.11a
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• pp.3-8
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• 2007

"The world is flat" as the popular author Thomas L. Friedman declares in his best belling book about the progress of business globalization in the $21^{st}$ century [3]. Construction projects and related businesses have been global since the 1800's, but it has never seen such rapid transformation in both scope and depth as in the past decade. Construction projects today often bring together international design talents, construction management firms, local and international labor forces, and global suppliers. On a visit to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates on the Persian Gulf, a person will experience the complexity of globalization of modern construction projects- with Arab owners, European engineering and design companies, American construction management teams, Korean general contractors, Jordanian subcontractors, and labor forces from Thailand, Indonesia, Turkey, and Sri Lanka. A count of material suppliers reveals over 60 countries involved, covering all continents. Indeed construction projects are getting more and more complex and competitive, as is the project execution. The trend toward globalization poses both challenges and opportunities to construction and engineering companies competing on a global scale. While global competition may be a threat to many companies, there are, however, many opportunities for synergistic collaborations that can create win-win scenarios for construction business, research, and education. This paper presents some of the opportunities between the U.S. and Asia in business integration, research collaboration on technologies, and educational development, which may mutually benefit countries on either side of the Pacific.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.547-567
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• 2014

Precast Seismic Structural Systems (PRESSS) provided an iterative procedure for obtaining optimum design of unbonded post-tensioned coupled precast concrete wall systems. Although PRESSS procedure is effective, however, it is lengthy and laborious. The purpose of this research is to employ Artificial Neural Network (ANN) to predict the optimum design parameters for such wall systems while avoiding the demanding iterative process. The developed ANN model is very accurate in predicting the nondimensional optimum design parameters related to post-tensioning reinforcement area, yield force of shear connectors and ratio of moment resisted by shear connectors to the design moment. The Mean Absolute Percent Error (MAPE) for the test data for these design parameters is around %1 and the correlation coefficient is almost equal to 1.0. The developed ANN model is then used to study the effect of different design parameters on wall behavior. It is observed that the design moment and the concrete strength have the most influence on the wall behavior as compared to other parameters. Several design examples were presented to demonstrate the accuracy and effectiveness of the ANN model.

• Korean Institute of Interior Design Journal
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• no.32
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• pp.72-81
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• 2002

Southeast Asian region cruise market is expected to be stable or grow in the near future depending on the region's economy. Star Cruises company, which has entirely dominated the regional market since 1998, has attempted to expand beyond traditional cruise routes in Southeast Asian region and develop new markets in Thailand and Dubai. Such a situation urges Korean shipyards to study on Southeast Asian region based cruise ships. This study is to suggest directions for planning of interior spaces of Southeast Asian region based cruise ships. In order to accomplish this purpose the market situation is analyzed and the adequate ship's tonnage(70,000grt class) is decided. According to mission-based design process the sizes of standard staterooms are set up first and then the sizes of the important structural parts of ship are calculated. Through analyzing the 26 cruise ships of 70,000grt class the kinds, locations and sizes of public rooms are grasped. And we inspect 4 cruise ships of Star Cruises, which are now being operated in Southeast Asian region to understand design characteristics of interior spaces.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.553-566
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• 2019

This study aimed to categorize pervious rubberized concrete into fresh and hardened concrete analyzing its durability, permeability and strength. During the globalization of modern life, growing population and industry rate have signified a sustainable approach to all aspects of modern life. In recent years, pervious concrete (porous concrete) has significantly substituted for pavements due to its mechanical and environmental properties. On the other hand, scrap rubber tire has been also contributed with several disposal challenges. Considering the huge amount of annually tire wastes tossing out, the conditions become worse. Pervious concrete (PC) gap has graded surface assisted with storm water management, recharging groundwater sources and alleviate water run-offs. The results have shown that the use of waste tires as aggregate built into pervious concrete has tremendously reduced the scrap tire wastes enhancing environmental compliance.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.12
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• pp.271-282
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• 2021

In recent years, a significant number of empirical studies have examined the relationship between export and economic growth in India. However, this study analyses the relationship between exports and economic growth through the time series model. The main aim of this study is to investigate the causal relationship between exports and economic growth in India. The VAR model was used for the period 1961 to 2015 after verifying the stationarity of the variables through using Augmented Dickey-Fuller and Phillip-Perron tests. The Indian export sector has been found to have a significant and positive impact on economic growth and other long-term economic activities. The study also employed the Granger causality test to check the direction of causality and found that RXGS, RGDP, RPFC, and RGFC had a unidirectional relationship and RXGS and RMGS had a bidirectional relationship in long run. Also, the findings of this study suggest that a steady-state between exports and economic growth can be achieved in India over a long period. The overall outcome of this study provides a testimony of the fact that the export sector plays a vital role in economic growth in India and also leads to the long-term growth of other economic activities.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.11
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• pp.11-19
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• 2021

The aim of this paper is to evaluate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the stock prices of the companies traded on the UAE financial markets (Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange and Dubai Financial Market). The time series regressions have been applied to estimate the impact of COVID-19 data on the companies' stock prices movements. The data cover the period between January 29^th, 2020, and January 5^th, 2021. The data was collected from the website of the Federal Competitiveness and Statistics Centre of the UAE. The empirical results of this study show that the stock prices are negatively and significantly affected by the number of COVID-19 positive cases and the number of death while they are positively and significantly affected by the number of recoveries. The results vary from one industry to another. These results would be important to the policymakers and financial regulators in developing the needed policies to improve the stock markets' resilience and maintain financial and economic stability. In addition, the findings would be useful to the investors and portfolio managers in taking the most appropriate investment decisions and managing more efficiently their portfolios. This paper will shed light on the responsiveness of the UAE financial market to the COVID-19 pandemic.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.207-214
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• 2019

Achieving a pervious concrete (PC) with appropriate physical and mechanical properties used in pavement have been strongly investigated through the use of different materials specifically from the global waste materials of the populated areas. Discarded tires and the rubber tire particles have been currently manufactured as the recycled waste materials. In the current study, the combination of polymer, silica fume and rubber aggregates from rubber tire particles have been used to obtain an optimized PC resulting that the PC with silica fume, polymer and rubber aggregate replacement to mineral aggregate has greater compressive and flexural strength. The related flexural and compressive strength of the produced PC has been increased 31% and 18% compared to the mineral PC concrete, also, the impact resistance has been progressed 8% compared to the mineral aggregate PC and the permeability with Open Graded Fraction Course standard (OGFC). While the manufactured PC has significantly reduced the elasticity modulus of usual pervious concrete, the impact resistance has been remarkably improved.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.851-861
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• 2021

The main objective of this study is to examine the government ownership effect on the United Arab Emirates (UAE) firm's corporate social responsibility (CSR). Government ownership is assumed to affect the CSR either directly or indirectly. That is by moderating the association between corporate governance and CSR. Publicly listed companies on the UAE capital markets (Abu Dhabi and Dubai) from 2010-2013 constituted the study sample. Panel data regression analyses and random effect model is used to examine the effects of board size, board independence, and audit committee characteristics on CSR. Government ownership is used as a moderator variable. The result showed that the existence of government ownership has a moderator effect on the association between corporate governance mechanisms and the CSR. Precisely, the research revealed that the audit committee characteristics become more effective in improving the firm's CSR when the government owns shares in the organization. The main contribution of this study is to examine how firm ownership structure influences good corporate governance and CSR in the UAE. The study contributes to the CSR literature by merging between the existence of governmental ownership and the power to enforce the implementation of corporate governance in an emerging country.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.7
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• pp.11-19
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• 2021

The study aims to investigate the impact of seasonality in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries' share market during the month of Ramadan. It helps in finding the opportunities for stock market investors to earn abnormal (returns) gain by investing during Ramadan in GCC stock markets. This study uses stock returns data of GCC countries (Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, Dubai, and UAE) from January 2004 to November 2019. Stock prices indexes of GCC stock markets have been obtained from Datastream. The ARCH-GARCH model is used to study the impact of the Ramadan month on the return and volatility of the stock market in GCC countries. The results showed that the Ramadan month has a significant impact on share market prices in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. However, Ramadan has an insignificant impact on share market prices in Bahrain and Oman. The study found no evidence of serial correlational between residuals in Kuwait; meaning that stock return was not dependent on the prior stock returns in Kuwait, therefore, we cannot go for forecasting. The ARCH-LM test statistic for Qatar does not fulfill the requirement of a good regression model; therefore, we cannot go for forecasting or testing the hypothesis of Qatar.