school of business
Publication Record
Dedoussis,V. 2001. Keiretsu and management practices in Japan:
Resilience amid change. Journal of Managerial Psychology 16
(2):173–188.
Dedoussis, V., and C. Czerkawski. 2000. Japanese management
practices after the big bubble. Keizai Kagaku Kenkyu [Journal of
Economic Sciences] 4 (1):1–26.
Dedoussis, V., and S. Hidaka. 2000. Japan's longest recession: Is this the end for Japanese
management?. Sakushin Keiei Kenkyu [Sakushin Business Review]
9:237–262.
El-Tannir, A. 2000. The global impact of information
technology on manufacturing systems. Economic Cooperation Among Islamic
Countries 21 (2):1–14.
Elfakhani, S. 2000. Short positions, size effect, and the
liquidity hypothesis: Implications for stock performance. Applied
Financial Economics 10:105–116.
Elfakhani, S., R. Wionzek, and * M. Chaudhury*. 1999. Thin
trading and mispricing profit opportunities in the Canadian commodity
futures. The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance 39 (1)37–58.
Ghaziri, H., S. Elfakhani, and *J. Assi*. 2000. Neural network
approach to pricing options. Journal of Neural Network World 1
(2):271–277.
Osman, I. H. 1999. A unified meta-heuristic framework.
Lecture notes in Artificial Intelligence 1611:11.
Pesch, E., F. Glover, I. H. Osman, T. Bartsch, and F.
Salewski. 1999. Efficient facility layout planning in maximally planar graph
model. International Journal of Production Research 37:263–283.
Abstracts, Conferences, and Proceedings
Baalbaki, I. B., and A. Sweidan. April 2000.
Corporate web sites: Objectives, effectiveness, and satisfaction. Academy of
Business Administration 2000 Conference, Vancouver, Canada.
Dedoussis, V. July 1999. Recent changes in human
resource management practices in large-scale enetrprises in Japan. Academy of
Business and Administrative Sciences (ABAS), Barcelona, Spain.
El-Tannir,
A. November 2000. Impact of information technology on small and medium
enterprises. Third International Conference on Telecommunication and
Electronic Commerce (ICTEC3), Dallas, Texas, USA.
———. April
2001. The corporate university model for continuous learning, training and
development. Millennium Dawn in Training and Continuous Education, Manamah,
Bahrain.
Elfakhani,
S., and D. Foltz. October 2000. Dividend signaling in Canadian markets.
Financial Management Association 30th Annual Meeting, Seattle, Washington,
USA.
Elfakhani,
S., R. Ghantous, and I. B. Baalbaki. May 2000. Mega-mergers in the US banking
industry. Financial Management Association (FMA) European Conference,
Edinburgh, Scotland.
Hidaka, S.,
and V. Dedoussis. July 2000. Japanese management under recession.
Administrative Sciences Association of Canada (ASAC) and International
Federation of Scholarly Associations of Management (IFSAM), Montreal, Canada.
Osman, I.
H. November 2000. Meta-heuristics: A general framework. Workshop on Algorithm
engineering as a new paradigm: A challenge to hard computation problems, pp.
117-118, Research Institute for mathematical Science, Kyoto University,
Japan.
Osman, I.
H., and S. Ahmadi. March 2001. Adaptive memory programing for the capacitated
clustering problem. International Conference on Adaptive Memory and
Evolution: Tabu Search and Scatter Search, Oxford, USA.
Osman, I.
H., and M. Hasan. June 2000. Meta-heuristics for the weighted maximal planar
graph. Institute for Operations Research and the Management Services
(INFORMS) International Conference, Korea, South Korea.
Wassan, N.
A., and I. H. Osman. September 2000. A reactive tabu search metaheuristic for
the vehicle routing problem. OR-42 Annual Conference, Swansea, UK.
Graduate Theses and Projects
Abdul
Rahman, F. January 2001. Prospects of cooperation between Lebanon and Syria
in banking industry. S. Elfakhani.
Abou Dahr,
R. May 2001. Reform of rental laws. S. Naimi and S. Elfakhani.
Al-Barbir,
T. August 2000. Shareholders' gains from corporate acquisitions: The case of
the telecom industry. S. Elfakhani.
Antoun, S.
January 2001. A feasibility study for IP telephony. S. Elfakhani.
Azzam, Z.
February 2000. A neural network approach to predict corporate bankruptcy. H.
Ghaziri and S. Elfakhani.
Boyadjian,
J. June 2001. Lebanon and the new global economy: A study of export
strategies. I. Baalbaki.
Brahimcha,
J. October 1999. The controversial role of humor in pharmaceutical
advertising. I. Baalbaki.
Chaar, Ch.
May 2000. The price-earnings model: A basic fundamental tool of security
analysis—Application on the Lebanese stocks. S. Elfakhani.
Darwish,
Gh. February 2001. Economic value added and equity valuation. S. Elfakhani.
Delgopiatof,
G. January 2001. Implementing value at risk. S. Elfakhani.
El-Bitar,
I. A. August 2000. Decision support
system for financial management. S. Elfakhani.
El Hachem,
H. February 2001. Standby letters of credit: Principles, rules, and
practices. S. Elfakhani and I. Baalbaki.
El-Hibri,
H. May 2001. Marketing Lebanon as a tourist destination. I. Baalbaki.
El Saghir,
C. May 2001. A market study to establish a recognized Lebanese fashion label.
I. Baalbaki.
Fatthallah,
Z. May 2000. Productivity improvement through operations management
techniques: Fatthallah Est case study. I. Osman and H. Ghaziri.
Haddarah,
A. October 1999. Performance of capital markets and initial public offerings
in Lebanon and Turkey. S. Elfakhani.
Halabieh,
Z. October 2000. Investment value of analysts' recommendations. S. Elfakhani
and I. Baalbaki.
Hammoud, H.
May 2001. Understanding philanthropic behavior. I. Baalbaki.
Hamzeh, B.
May 2000. Investors' response to earnings surprises. S. Elfakhani.
Hijazi, B.
May 2000. Bankruptcy prediction using self-organizing maps. H. Ghaziri and I.
Baalbaki.
Itani, M.
April 2000. Forecasting stock splits: Profit opportunities. S. Elfakhani.
Kabbara, M.
May 2001. Marketing credit for small business. I. Baalbaki.
Kabbara, N.
May 2000. Mass customization. I. Baalbaki.
Khansa, S.
May 2001. The role of sports media event coverage and promotion: A Lebanese
hypothetical TV case. I. Baalbaki.
Khatib, M.
May 2001. Analysis of mutual funds objective and performance. S. Elfakhani.
Mansour, R.
May 2001. Effect of taxes on investors' returns from mutual funds. S.
Elfakhani.
Mazboudi,
M. October 2000. Is this the stock exchange that we want? S. Elfakhani.
Moghrabi,
M. February 2001. Profit opportunities utilizing technical analysis of future
commodities charts. I. Osman and Y. Shibl.
Mouci, R.
November 1999. Feasibility study of a data network for the Lebanese banking
sector's payment system. Y. Shibl and S. Elfakhani.
Moussawi,
R. August 2000. Models for predicting stock price reactions to earnings
surprises with special emphasis on neural networks. S. Elfakhani.
Rahmeh, Z.
May 2000. Branding: Curse or blessing I. Baalbaki.
Rizk, N.
May 2001. Social marketing: The case for lowering the electoral age to 18. I.
Baalbaki.
Salameh, Z.
January 2001. Monetary policy in the existence of electronic money. S.
Elfakhani.
Sayegh, S.
May 2000. Banking trends at the threshold of the third millennium: A case
study of Banque du Liban et d'Outre Mer. S. Elfakhani.
Serhan, N.
February 2000. Exchange rate in Lebanon: Valuation and intervention. S.
Elfakhani.
Sunna, S.
October 2000. Valuation of internet stocks. S. Elfakhani and I. Baalbaki.
Syriani, P.
January 2001. Consumer's attitudes and response toward internet advertising.
I. Baalbaki.
Tannir, L.
May 2001. A proposed reform of the directorate of revenues at the Ministry of
Finance. I. Baalbaki.
Yaghsezian,
L. May 2001. Marketing in the age of virtual markets. I. Baalbaki.
Zahariya,
M. May 2000. The effect of online trading on the financial markets
trading. S. Elfakhani.
Zeenie, D. February 2000. Moving to electronic business: A
roadmap for success. I. Baalbaki.
Research Projects
The integration of Beirut exchange with other Arab
markets
Practitioners note that cross-listing makes it easier for
Arab investors to trade on the BSE, implying that trading activities would be
enhanced following the cross-listing event. This event would also improve the
liquidity, resiliency and depth of the Beirut Stock Exchange market. Thus,
this paper will investigate the following four issues: (1) whether there is
any integration effect among the Lebanese, Egyptian, and Kuwaiti markets, (2)
whether trading activities have been improving at the BSE since its opening
in 1996, (3) whether this improvement has affected the liquidity and
resiliency of the BSE, and (4) whether the change in market efficiency is the
direct result of cross-listing or is mainly due to other national and
international conditions that affected trading at the BSE in the past two
years. Data have been collected and some statistical work has already been
done. Elfakhani, S.
Partially funded by a grant from the URB
Completed or in progress at AUB
Integration vs. segmentation in the gulf states
securities market: Lessons from Europe
Financial integration is more and more necessary if the
Arabian Gulf States (hereafter referred to as GCC) is to have a new
impulse. However, financial
integration is too broad a concept and may involve a dramatic loss of
sovereignty. Limited and realistic objectives have to be set up, and
one way of creating a strong link between national money and capital markets
is to start with specific markets. Currently, most, if not all, of the
stock exchanges in the GCC are small, closed-world, inefficient to a certain
degree, and probably dull. Carefully putting six of them together may
increase their efficiency significantly. The purpose of this study is
to investigate if there are any potential gains for the GCC securities market
from international diversification through their integration. This
would be linked to the former experience that other nations have gone
through, particularly the European experience. Data have been collected and
some statistical work has already been performed. Elfakhani, S. and A.
Alsakran*.
Supported by King Fahed University of Petroleum and
Minerals
Completed or in progress at AUB and King Fahed University of Petroleum and
Minerals
Mega-mergers in the US banking industry
Historically, financial markets have witnessed several
consolidation trends. The 1998 year, however, surpassed them all in volume
and size of individual deals. This paper utilizes the event study
approach to analyze the mega-mergers that took place in the banking industry
during 1998, namely, that of Travelers Group with Citicorp, NationsBank with
BankAmerica, and Bank One with First Chicago NBD. A test of daily
abnormal returns is conducted to find out the impact of each of the three
mergers on shareholders' wealth from both the acquired and acquirer's
perspectives. The obtained results indicate that the market's reaction
was positive during the on-event sub-period (i.e., days 0 and 1), for both
the acquired and acquirer in the Travelers-Citicorp merger, only for the
acquirer in the NationsBank-BankAmerica deal, and for the acquired firm in
the case of Bank One-First Chicago NBD merger. Currently, the paper has been
sent to a refereed journal for a second review. Elfakhani, S., I.
Baalbaki, and R. Ghantous*.
Completed or in progress at AUB
Dividend Dividend signals in Canadian markets
Corporate dividends have been the subject of a great deal
of research, providing a base of work focusing largely on American data, with
Canadian markets receiving very little attention. Studies have been
conducted to determine why dividends exist, what effects they have on share
prices, and their link to the existing tax regime. One subject that has
garnered many published studies is dividend signaling, namely, the attempt by
management to reduce the information asymmetry that exists in markets.
Recently, dividend signaling theory has been extended to account for the
information that is released in a wide variety of previous events. This
study attempts to shed more light on multiple signaling notions and to start
to fill the Canadian void in the existing base of research. The
database in this study spans the period March 1, 1985 through October 31,
1995. The study has two main goals: (a) to investigate the role that dividend
announcements play in Canadian markets given the prior release of
analysts=earnings estimates, and (b) to examine the earnings performance that
follows the dividend signal, namely, signal validity. The paper is complete,
was presented to the Financial Management Association, Hong Kong in May 1998,
and has been accepted in the journal, Corporate Finance Review,
forthcoming 2001-2002. Elfakhani, S., and D. Foltz.
Completed or in progress at University of Saskatchewan and AUB
Can forecasts of stock splits achieve abnormal returns?
A substantial body of the literature suggests that stock
splits convey corporate information. This paper studies the effect of various
split forecast techniques on stock performance during split events.
Furthermore, the study tests the effect of split forecasts on stock
performance under various scenarios. In general, splitting stocks that were
forecasted to split performed less well than split stocks that were not
forecasted to split, and both groups, in turn, performed better than stocks
that were forecasted to split but did not split. Results for the case where
stocks split later than expected displayed market reaction before the split
event itself. In addition, stocks that were not optioned generated
higher returns upon their split than those that were optioned.
Moreover, the study presents evidence that stock prices react more positively
to stocks with no prior history of splitting compared to stocks that have had
such a history. Furthermore, it was found that a company with a history of
splitting is more likely to split when reaching the same historical price.
Currently, the paper is under revision before acceptance in a refereed
journal. Elfakhani S., and M. Itani*.
Completed or in progress at AUB
The effect of split announcements on Canadian stocks
This paper examines the market behavior surrounding stock
split announcements in the Canadian market for the 1977-1993 period.
Using the event study methodology, the findings indicate that abnormal
returns exist on both the announcement days (0,1) and on the eleven-day
period surrounding stock split announcements. The results also show
that, following the split event, bid-ask spreads decrease while both trading
volume and the number of transactions increase. This evidence supports
the notion that split events enhance liquidity, thus favoring the liquidity
hypothesis explanation. Further, it appears that earnings per share rise and
capitalization grows in the year following split events, thus supporting the
signaling hypothesis (i.e., split events signal future performance of the
firm), as to explain the motivation for split decisions. The paper is
already completed, and was presented to the Financial Management Association
28th Annual Conference, Chicago, Illinois, October 1998, and to the Sixth
Annual Global Finance Conference, Istanbul, Turkey, April 1999. The
paper has been sent to a refereed journal for a second review.
Elfakhani, S., and T. Lung*.
The survivorship bias, share price effect, and
small-firm effect in Canadian markets
This paper examines the relationship between average
returns, firm size, and price levels for Canadian stocks during the 1975-1994
period, after controlling for survivorship bias. The sample is divided
into two sub-samples; one includes stocks that survived until the end of the
testing period (December 1994), and the other includes firms that were
deleted before the cut-off date. Both samples were cross-classified by size
(price level), then by share price level (firm size). Findings indicate
that there is a significant inverse share price level effect in Canadian
markets; i.e., stocks with high price denominations earned higher returns
than low-priced stocks. These results hold for the overall sample and
for the survivor group. Furthermore, the delisted group shows a strong
performance for large size, high price stocks, implying that these stocks
were likely strong performing winners that were missed in prior
studies. However evidence in support of an independent size effect is
less clear for Canadian stocks. A small size effect exists only after
controlling for share price levels and mainly for higher share price
denominations, suggesting a confounded size-price effect. Overall, it seems
that the survivorship bias is significant and, therefore, should be accounted
for in future research. Moreover, caution is needed before accepting
conclusions made in earlier studies. The paper is complete, and was presented
to the Sixth Conference on Pacific Basin Business, Economics, and Finance,
Hong Kong, May 1998. Currently, it is under revision before acceptance
in a refereed journal. Elfakhani, S., and J. Wei*.
Partially funded by a grant from the University of
Saskatchewan USTEP96 program, Canada
Completed or in progress at University of Saskatchewan and AUB
Evaluation of meta-heuristics for the weighted maximal
planar graph problem
The main objective of this research project is to develop,
implement, and empirically analyze newly-introduced meta-heuristics,
including greedy random adaptive search procedure (GRASP), variable
neighborhood search, and hybrids with linear programing heuristics.
Computational results are compared on benchmark instances with the best
algorithms in the literature. Osman, I.
Supported by URB
Completed or in progress at AUB
A greedy random adaptive search procedure for the
weighted maximal planar graph
The main objective of this paper is to develop, implement,
and empirically analyze a new Greedy Random Adaptive Search Procedure (GRASP)
to solve the WMPG problem. A dynamic strategy to update the restricted
candidate list is proposed. An efficient data structure is developed
for the Green and Al-Hakim (G&H) construction heuristic. The data
structure reduces the G&H complexity from O(n3) to O(n2). The
G&H heuristic with data structure is integrated with advanced-moves
neighborhood to develop an efficient GRASP implementation. Further, we
investigate the behavior of GRASP parameters in relation to the problem's
characteristics. Finally, the developed algorithms are compared with
the best-known procedures in the literature on a set of 100 test instances of
sizes varying from 20 to 100 facilities. Osman, I. H., B. Al-Ayoubi, M. A.
Barakeh, and M. Hasan.
Supported by URB
Completed or in progress at AUB and Kuwait and Lebanese Universities
LP-based heuristics for the weighted maximal planar
graph problem
In this paper an integer linear programming (ILP) model is
newly introduced. Two heuristics are then derived from the ILP relaxation.
The first heuristic considers all variables with fractional values greater
than half in the ILP relaxation to build an initial sub-graph from which a
planar sub-graph is extracted and augmented by triangulation of faces. The
second heuristic considers only arcs with integer values in the ILP
relaxation. The remaining arcs are then sorted in descending order of their
weights for selection and insertion with a planarity testing procedure to
obtain a feasible solution. Computational results are reported on a set of
100 test instances of size, varying from 20 to 100 facilities. The
computational results demonstrate the tightness of the new upper-bound when
compared to the classical one, as well as the good performance of the
proposed heuristics when compared to the best known procedures in the
literature in terms of solution, quality, and computational requirement.
Finally the paper presents a successful integration of a greedy random
adaptive search procedure with classical optimization approaches, which
should be applied to other optimization problems. Osman, I. H., M. Hasan, and
A. Abdullah.
Supported by URB
Completed or in progress at AUB and Kent University
A reactive tabu search meta-heuristic for the vehicle
routing with backhauls
In this paper, two route-construction heuristics are
described to generate quickly initial solutions. These heuristics are based
on the saving-insertion and saving-assignment procedures, respectively. The
generated initial solutions are then improved by a reactive tabu search
meta-heuristic. The reactive concept is used in a new way to trigger the
switch between different neighborhood structures for the intensification and
diversification phases of the search of the neighborhood spaces. Special data
structures are also described to manage efficiently the search of the
neighborhood space. Computational results are reported for a number of
benchmarks. The results show that the proposed metaheuristic is robust and
competitive relative to other approaches in the literature. Osman, I. H., and
N. Wassan.
Completed or in progress at AUB and University of Kent
Tabu search variants for the mix fleet vehicle routing
problem
This paper develops variants of tabu search meta-heuristic
for the MFVRP. These variants use different combinations of components,
including: reactive tabu search to provide a proper balance of
diversification and intensification; several neighborhood generation
mechanisms and special data structures for a better efficiency. Computational
results are reported on a set of benchmark instances for which, our algorithm
produces high quality solutions including some new best-known solutions and
compare favorably with the best existing algorithms. Osman, I. H., and N.
Wassan.
Completed or in progress at AUB and Kent University
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