This paper critically evaluates the practice of partnership-based or equity-based sukuk (Islamic bonds) structure in light of the problem concerning default. The study focuses on the debt characteristics built into the equity structure before and after the Accounting and Auditing Organization for Islamic Financial Institutions (AAOIFI) announcement in 2008. A closer examination the structure of two musharakah (joint venture) sukuk that practice in the market has demonstrated „why‟ sukuk are experiencing default situations. While ideally the element of risk avoidance and profit-sharing should present in the structure, due to market presssure, these structural features practically turned the equity-based profit-and-losssharing arrangements into fixed-income instruments. Ultimately, the structure that should practice „no concept of fixed obligation‟ has in fact defaulted on its obligations. Keywords: Sukuk (Islamic Bonds), Shariah (Islamic Law), Default, Profit-sharing, Musharakah (Joint venture).

The aim of this study is to evaluate the relationship between foreign direct investment and economic growth. Although there is no consensus on the relationship between foreign direct investment flows and economic growth in the literature, a growing view in recent years shows that foreign direct investments have contribution on economic growth. These investments act as a main factor for the economic growth of both developed and developing countries. Panel data analysis is used for the empirical study for evaluating the relationship between foreign direct investments and GDP. Data from 14 OECD countries for GDP and foreign direct investments for the 1990-2017 period is used. According to the results of the study, a positive relationship between foreign direct investments and economic growth was identified. Keywords: Foreign Direct Investments, Economic Growth, Panel Data Analysis.

Hospital scheduling presents huge challenges for the healthcare industry. Various studies have been conducted in many different countries with focus on both elective and non-elective surgeries. There are important variables and factors that need to be taken into considerations. Different methods and approaches have also been used to examine hospital scheduling. Notwithstanding the continuous changes in modern healthcare services and hospital operations, consistent reviews and further studies are still required. The importance of hospital scheduling, particularly, has become more critical as the trade-off between limited resources and overwhelming demand is becoming more evident. This situation is even more pressing in a volatile country where shootings and bombings in public areas happened. Hospital scheduling for elective surgeries in volatile country such as Iraq is often interrupted by non-elective surgeries due to war-related incidents. Hence, this paper intends to address this issue by proposing a hospital scheduling model with focus on neurosurgery department. The aim of the model is to maximize utilization of operating room while concurrently minimizing idle time of surgery. The study focused on neurosurgery department in Al-Shahid Ghazi Al-Hariri hospital in Baghdad, Iraq. In doing so, Tabu search (TS) approach is applied where interruptions of non-elective surgery are incorporated into the main elective surgery-based model. Computational experiment is then carried out to test the model. The result indicates that the model is feasible and can be solved in reasonable times. Nonetheless, its feasibility is further tested as the problems size and the computation times is getting bigger and longer. Application of heuristic methods is the way forward to ensure better practicality of the proposed model. In the end, the potential benefit of this study and the proposed model is discussed. Keywords: Operating Room Scheduling, Tabu Search, Mixed Integer Linear Programming, Elective Surgery.

In deepening Chinese industrialization, industrial agglomeration is an important way to realize industrial transformation and upgrading, and it is worthwhile to find the sources of agglomeration effects. Starting from three features of industrial agglomeration, this paper reconstructs industrial agglomeration indexes based on geographical absolute concentration, specialized division and economic connections among industries, calculates labor and capital agglomerations in 13 manufacturing industries of China from 2004 to 2013, and finds that labor agglomeration declines slowly while capital agglomeration increases year by year. Furthermore, this paper divides the manufacturing industries into three types, namely, the laborintensive, the capital-intensive and the technology-intensive, according to common factor intensity, and carries out an empirical test of the relationship between factor agglomeration and productivity. As the results show, capital agglomeration has a significant impact on both the single and the total factor productivity (TFP) of all three industries; on the contrary, labor agglomeration only has impacts on the labor-intensive industry, a weak impact on the technology- intensive industry, and no impact on the capitalintensive industry. Therefore, the agglomeration effects of Chinese industries mostly come from the capital factor. We should pay more attention to the positive role of capital agglomeration and avoid crowding effect resulted from excessive concentration during the industrial intensive development process. Keywords: Industrial Agglomeration, Agglomeration Index, Single Factor Productivity, Total Factor Productivity, Agglomeration Effect.

The objective of the study is to examine the role of Knowledge management as a mediator in the relationship between Spiritual intelligence and Employee engagement among the executives working in Information services industry. The study was conducted at Kerala state, among the employees working in IT and ITeS companies, having offices and sites at Trichur, Calicut, Cochin and Trivandrum. Samples were drawn using systematic random sampling from the NASSCOM registered companies. It is hypothesised that Knowledge management do not mediate the relationship between Spiritual intelligence and Employee engagement, and further a model is proposed. In order to test the hypothesis and model fitness, the scores of respondents are subjected to path analysis as well as structural equation modelling. To test the model, absolute fit and parsimonious fit indices were calculated. The data collected, fit the proposed model. The study indicates that Knowledge management is in a mediating relationship between Spiritual intelligence and Employee engagement. Further, it is observed that there is a negative direct relationship between Spiritual intelligence and Employee engagement. It is noticed that the type of mediation is complete mediation, since the direct negative effect of Spiritual intelligence on Employee engagement is no longer significant after the entry of the mediating variable Knowledge management. Thus, Spiritual intelligence has an indirect effect on Employee engagement through the mediating variable Knowledge management. Keywords: Employee Engagement, Knowledge Management, Mediation, Spiritual Intelligence.

This research study is conducted in order to empirically reveal the factors affecting the online purchasing behaviors of university students who act as e-consumers on the Internet and the relationship between these factors within the scope of the theory of planned behavior. The questionnaire survey forms prepared within the context of the theory of planned behavior for this purpose are applied to 327 students who study at Niğde Ömer Halisdemir University in 2017-2018 academic years. The obtained data are analyzed via SPSS 22.0 statistical computer software. In the study, regression analysis is performed in testing the presented model within the theory of planned behavior. As a result of the research study; it is determined that purchase intentions, attitudes/behaviors, and perceived behavioral controls of e-consumers have a positive impact on their purchasing behaviors. Also, the perceived behavioral controls positively affect the direct purchasing behavior and the purchase intention variable also affect the purchasing behavior positively. It is determined that the has no significant impact on purchase intention. Consequently, the empirical results support the theoretical model, except for the aspect of perceived social pressure. Keywords: E-consumer, Online Shopping, Purchasing over the Internet, Purchasing Behavior, Theory of Planned Behavior.

This paper studies the differentiation management of green agricultural products problem of "Farmer supermarket connection" mode. The "Farmer supermarket connection" mode is a direct connection between supermarkets and farmers (or cooperatives), what the supermarket needs and what the farmers produce. The green degree is used to indicate the quality level of health, safety and nutrition of agricultural products. The greater the green degree, the better the quality of agricultural products. In order to meet the needs of all consumers, the supermarket decided to differentiate one kind of agricultural products, namely, the supermarket which operates both ordinary and green agricultural products. It builds on the consumer utility function for ordinary agricultural products and green agricultural products. Based on utility function, it analysis the consumers choice behavior of ordinary agricultural products and green agricultural products. It is concluded that the general demand for agricultural products and the demand of green agricultural products. It is discussed the optimal decision based on Stackelberg game of supermarket choosing one farmer to purchase of common agricultural products and green agricultural products at the same time and supermarket to choose two farmers to purchase of common agricultural products and green agricultural products. It can be seen from the comparison that the supermarket chooses the two farmers to order separately, which is more profitable than the purchase of one. Finally, a "wholesale price + ordering subsidy" coordination mechanism is proposed to realize supply chain coordination. An example is given to verify the rationality of the model and conclusion. Keywords: Differentiation, Management, Green-Agriculture, Products and Analysis.

Today, marketing has become highly competitive across the industry, and understanding consumers’ behavior has become a challenging task for the marketers. In strategic marketing planning, consumer behavior is an integral part of said process as the consumer plays the role of the user, the buyer and the payer. The behavior of the consumers changes as the factors that affect the consumer’s behavior change. The goal of this research is to examine the effect of education on consumers’ impulsive buying behavior. Data is collected using a 30-question questionnaire to test the respondents’ impulsive buying behavior, their attitude to impulsive buying, and their education level and Emotional Intelligence. The sample size is 200, of which 184 are valid. Statistical Product and Service Solutions (SPSS) is used to analyze the acquired data to discern the correlation between the level of education and impulsive buying behavior. Keywords: Impulsive Buying, Demographic Factors, Education, Lebanon.

Systematization fulfills a formative role because, through shared strategies, it teaches professors how to recover and assess their own practices, acquire new knowledge, and transform their teaching strategies. The research objective was to systematize educational experiences in the field of technologies and information management (TyMI) through educational scaffolding, in order to achieve higher and better learning in students according to the educational level corresponding to this exercise. The work had an ethnographic qualitative approach. The information harvesting techniques used were participant observation, structured field journals, documents, recordings and rubrics. The unit of analysis considered was made up of the scaled actions offered to students for self-regulation in their learning and the conditions required to enable such actions. The population consisted of a community made up by a group of first semester students of different races from the Faculty of Accountancy and Administration of the Autonomous University of Chihuahua, in the city of Chihuahua, Mexico. The use of educational scaffolding in the systematization of educational experiences, was of great value due to the fact that the proposal was open and flexible, and each teacher was able to customize and appropriate elements relevant to his or her instructional design, based on the challenges and problems faced in the course. The significance of this proposal lies with the incorporation of strategies for the development of complex thinking, linking with the current problems and relevant use of ICT in learning. Keywords: Systematization of Educational Experiences, Scaffolding, Technologies and Management of the Information and Communications.

The aim of this study is to investigate whether the organizational culture and leadership have an effect on performance. The literature search displays that these three subjects are usually studied on their own. The effects of organizational culture, leadership and performance on each other are not sufficiently tackled. Thus, this study intends to help filling this gap. The impact of organizational culture and leadership over performance is examined with the assistance of survey data. The main mass of the survey is represented by the managers of a shopping mall. As a result of these analyzes; organizational culture and leadership, organizational culture and performance, leadership and performance were found to have a meaningful relationship. It was found that organizational culture and leadership had effects on firm performance. Keywords: Organizational Culture, Leadership, Firm Performance.