An Analysis of Perceptions of Western Corporate Governance Principles in Saudi Arabia

Managers working for multinational firms must evaluate the extent to which they should adapt corporate governance mechanisms to local markets or to pursue a one-size-fits-all approach. In 1999, the OECD Principles of Corporate Governance were endorsed by OECD ministers in an attempt to influence policymakers worldwide by setting global governance standards. Yet the level of approval and understanding of these principles in non-OECD nations is still unclear. In this study we develop and test a survey instrument in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to assess perceptions of OECD principles by 168 Saudi Arabian managers. Results suggest that Saudi Arabian perceptions of shareholder rights are positively related to

a) maintaining an effective corporate governance framework and

b) the effective monitoring of management by the board of directors.

Managerial implications and future research directions are also discussed.     

Charismatic political authority and populist economics in post-revolutionary Iran

This paper undertakes a political analysis of economic policy in Iran in the post-1979 period, and examines a specific kind of populist economics within the legacy of the rentier state as a result of the emergence of charismatic political authority. It discusses the implications of charismatic authority which led to the implementation of populist economics, and which coincided with economic and political instability during the reign of Ayatollah Khumaini and afterwards when his successor was involved in a crisis of routinisation of charismatic legitimacy. In doing so, the economic effects of such policies are examined in terms of the (re)distribution of income and the establishment of para-governmental organisations, the overvaluation of the national currency, and the budget deficit and its inflationary pressure.     

Turf wars: The battle for control over English local economic development

This article discusses how the release of small area microdata (SAM) from the 2001 UK Population Census could help provide better information in the policy-making process at sub-local authority spatial levels. An experimental set of SAM from the 1991 Census, provided by National Statistics, was used to develop a methodology which can provide SAM estimates of the effects of area at ward level, and can separate these spatial effects from compositional influences due to characteristics of the local area population. These SAM-based results appear to be at variance with census tabular data. It is concluded that 2001 Census SAM could provide an important further source of information for improved policy and target setting at the local area level.     

Identification of Risk Factors Generating Terrorism in Pakistan

Terrorism is a complex issue and various researchers have identified numerous causes and conditions that generate or are capable of generating terrorism. In the last decade, terrorist attacks claimed 36,495 lives and injured 27,985 people in Pakistan as a result of 3,482 bomb blasts and 281 suicide attacks. The aim of this research was to establish the major risk factors generating terrorism, based on the opinions of security officials who dealt directly with the Pakistan security situation. Sixty-five causes identified from the literature and interviews with security officials were modeled and transformed into a questionnaire. A nationwide response from security officials who were directly involved in dealing with apprehended terrorists was obtained. The population was selected proportionately from high, medium, and low security zones of Pakistan. Out of 500 questionnaires sent, 103 valid responses were received. The results helped establish the 13 major risk factors associated with generating terrorism. It was observed that addressing these 13 major risk factors would mostly resolve the other minor risk factors as well. Findings of this research might be beneficial for countries affected by terrorism, and countries with prioritized and rationalized allocation of funds in their budgets for substantially overcoming terrorism.     

Bangladeshi Militants: What Do We Know?

ABSTRACT

Although militant groups have been present in Bangladesh since the 1990s, the country catapulted to international media attention on July 1, 2016, after an attack on a café in the upscale neighborhood of the capital Dhaka. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack which killed 29 people, mostly foreigners. The attack came in the wake of a series of attacks on religious and ethnic minorities, foreigners, liberal activists, authors, and publishers by both an AQIS affiliate and ISIS. The government denied the existence of militant groups tied to international terrorist organizations. Despite these developments and instances of Bangladeshis joining the ISIS in Iraq and Syria, there has been very little in-depth discussion about who these militants are and what is driving Bangladeshis to militancy. This article addresses this lacuna. This paper examines the common traits of alleged Bangladeshi militants and explores the factors of radicalization. Drawing on media reports of the profiles of the alleged militants, between July 2014 and June 2015, and between July 2016 and August 2017, the article finds that most of the Bangladeshi militants are young, educated males increasingly coming from well-off families. We have also found evidence that four factors—social relationships, use of the Internet, personal crises, and external relations—appear most frequently in the narratives of Bangladeshi militants.     

Application of Raman spectroscopy in forensic investigation of questioned documents involving stamp inks

Stamp pad inks from different manufacturers across India have been analyzed to investigate the feasibility of Raman scattering as a tool for forensic analysis of questioned documents involving stamp inks. Nine different stamping inks were analyzed by both Raman spectroscopic and HPTLC methods. The results demonstrate the effectiveness of these methods in classifying the investigated stamping inks based on their spectral pattern and HPTLC chromatogram. Raman scattering tool was able to determine the sequence of heterogeneous intersection strokes involving a blue stamp pad ink and other writing instruments, such as ballpoint pen ink (red and black), pencil and laser printer toner. However, this method was unable to resolve the exact sequencing for the intersection strokes involving investigated stamp ink and blue ballpoint ink or gel pen ink (all colors).     

Rapid genomic DNA extraction (RGDE)

Hyperpolymorphic short tandem repetitive DNA sequences, STRs or microsatellites, have become widely used in human identification, particularly in criminal cases and in mass disasters. In such cases the substrates for the analyses may be decomposed as a biological material, a fact that has to be taken into account when choosing the appropriate casework methods. Nowadays expanded windows have been opened to the world especially in the area of genetic and biology science by performance of big projects such as human genome project. In this regard, one of the primary and important steps for all is DNA extraction with high quality and quantity in minimum time from biological material. By using RGDE method, genomic DNA with high quality and quantity can be acquired in the shortest time which has been presented in the world up to now. In this paper we report the evaluation of DNA extraction in this method.     

the sense of memory

In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in the role of collective memory in ethno-national projects. In addition, there has been an expansion of research utilising memory work and auto/biographical methods, which have been particularly effective in the writing of feminists of colour. The paper is prompted by a return to Avtar Brah's ‘The Scent of Memory’ that it uses as a starting point to explore the relationships between competing accounts of ‘private’ memories of racialisation that come from mixed-race siblings growing up in a mainly white town. Drawing on interviews, the paper uses familial narratives and their individual telling, to show how sense is made of divergent experiences and memories of childhood and teenage in 1960s and 1970s Britain. The paper shows how narrative accounts are often negotiated through multiple senses, revealing them as both imagined and recalled, contested and negotiated. The paper considers the strengths and limitations of narrative analysis in understanding the relationship between individual and collective memories at both national and familial levels. It argues that the ways in which the social and personal memories are connected in the processes of subjectivation are unstable and opaque, and can only ever be partially known through the process of narrativisation.