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Social media and social media tools have improved rapidly and started to influence society especially in recent years. This influence has forced businesses to revolutionize their communication with the external environment. The fact that Web 2.0 has an influence on consumer behavior, and that it makes the consumers stronger; requires faster, more flexible and more sensitive communication processes in businesses. Especially during a time of crisis, a business’ communication with the external environment is quite critical. For this reason, the way how the crisis communication is managed through social media is vital for businesses. In this article, the perceptions of how to manage businesses during a time of crisis so that they make minimum loss, is shared.

Positive organizational scholarship has gained attention in recent years which emphasizes investing in employee strengths. Review of relevant literature gave some insights on the relationship between organizational climate, inter-individual relationships and thriving at work. This study examines the impact of organizational trust on thriving at work quantitatively. Data was obtained from sample of academicians all over Turkey (n=422) participated to cross-sectional survey study stating their trust to management, supervisor, colleagues and their thriving at work. The structural equation modelling results showed a strong positive relationship between organizational trust and thriving at work (?=.74). Also, it was the first time thriving at work scale has been assessed in Turkey. The validity and reliability scores indicate its usability in Turkish literature.

The aim of this research is to understand the factors behind smartphone purchase decisions of consumers. Nowadays companies make use of various strategies in order to attract new customers, retain existing customers and differentiate their products from those of their competitors. Perhaps, the most important and effective strategy to influence consumer behavior in the product selection is emphasizing the “brand name” of the products. Our aim in this paper is to investigate how smartphone brands can influence consumers’ buying decisions. Brand equity is a set of brand assets and liabilities linked to a brand name and symbol, which add to or subtract from the value provided by a product or service. It enhances the customer’s ability to interpret and process information, improves confidence in the purchase decision and affects the quality of the user experience. Using this construct widely discussed in the literature, we use and build our hypothesis based on Aaker model about the brand equity, including perceived quality, brand awareness, brand association and brand loyalty. The study involved a questionnaire administered to 171 smartphone consumers between December 2015 and March 2016. The consumers were chosen by convenience sampling among the students from a prestigious university in the Istanbul district of Turkey. Our findings indicate that a majority of the smartphone buyers’ decisions are mainly influenced by brand loyalty and brand awareness. Perceived quality and brand association do not seem to influence purchase decisions for the sample of this study.

Bu çal??man?n amac?, Türkiye’de hayat d??? sigortac?l?k sektöründe aktif karl?l??? ile firmaya özgü faktörler aras?ndaki ili?kiyi tespit ederek aktif kârl?l???n?n etkinlikten mi yoksa yo?unla?madan m? kaynakland???n? belirlemektir. Bu amaçla, Türk sigorta sektöründe faaliyet gösteren 36 hayat d??? sigorta ?irketi aras?nda 2015 y?l? verilerine göre pazar?n toplam %83.38’ini olu?turan 15 sigorta ?irketinin 2010-2015 dönemine ait mali verileri ile performans ili?kisine yönelik Period SUR panel veri analizi yap?lm??t?r. Analiz sonuçlar?na göre, aktif büyüklü?ü, likidite ve pazar pay? de?i?kenleri ile aktif karl?l??? aras?nda pozitif ve istatistiki olarak anlaml? bir ili?ki tespit edilmi?ken kald?raç, hasar/prim oran? ve firma ya?? de?i?kenleri aras?nda ise negatif ve istatistiki olarak anlaml? bir ili?ki tespit edilmi?tir.  Analiz dönemi boyunca Herfindahl–Hirschman Endeksi de?erleri 1.500’ün alt?nda oldu?u için Türkiye’de hayat d??? sigortac?l?k sektörünün yo?un olmayan bir piyasa görünümünde oldu?u tespit edilmi?tir. Bu nedenle, hayat d??? sigortac?l?k sektöründe aktif kârl?l??? yo?unla?madan daha ziyade faaliyetlerdeki etkinlikten kaynaklanmaktad?r.

In this study, we aimed to explain the influencing factors of interest rate risk in Turkish banking sector. Within this scope, 20 deposit banks in Turkey were evaluated. Furthermore, annual data for the periods between 2006 and 2015 was analyzed by using panel logit method. According to the results of this analysis, it was identified that 2 explanatory variables affect interest rate risk of Turkish banks. First of all, it was determined that banks, which have higher amount of deposits, are exposed to higher amount of interest rate risk. In addition to this situation, it was also defined that there is a negative relationship between the amount of capital and interest rate risk. As a result of this issue, it was recommended that Turkish banks should increase capital amount in order to manage interest rate risk more effectively.

Bu çal??man?n amac?, Türkiye’de hayat d??? sigortac?l?k sektöründe aktif karl?l??? ile firmaya özgü faktörler aras?ndaki ili?kiyi tespit ederek aktif kârl?l???n?n etkinlikten mi yoksa yo?unla?madan m? kaynakland???n? belirlemektir. Bu amaçla, Türk sigorta sektöründe faaliyet gösteren 36 hayat d??? sigorta ?irketi aras?nda 2015 y?l? verilerine göre pazar?n toplam %83.38’ini olu?turan 15 sigorta ?irketinin 2010-2015 dönemine ait mali verileri ile performans ili?kisine yönelik Period SUR panel veri analizi yap?lm??t?r. Analiz sonuçlar?na göre, aktif büyüklü?ü, likidite ve pazar pay? de?i?kenleri ile aktif karl?l??? aras?nda pozitif ve istatistiki olarak anlaml? bir ili?ki tespit edilmi?ken kald?raç, hasar/prim oran? ve firma ya?? de?i?kenleri aras?nda ise negatif ve istatistiki olarak anlaml? bir ili?ki tespit edilmi?tir.  Analiz dönemi boyunca Herfindahl–Hirschman Endeksi de?erleri 1.500’ün alt?nda oldu?u için Türkiye’de hayat d??? sigortac?l?k sektörünün yo?un olmayan bir piyasa görünümünde oldu?u tespit edilmi?tir. Bu nedenle, hayat d??? sigortac?l?k sektöründe aktif kârl?l??? yo?unla?madan daha ziyade faaliyetlerdeki etkinlikten kaynaklanmaktad?r.

Nowadays, one of the leading factors used in the evaluation of a country’s economic development is energy consumption. Because of economic growth, demand for energy is also increasing. In this study, the emerging European countries’ (the Czech Republic, Poland, Romania, Turkey) and the CIS countries’ (Kazakhstan, Russia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan)  electricity consumption has been forecasted for five years period (2015-2019). In the study, GM(1,1) Rolling Model, which is developed in the framework of Grey System Theory is used as a mathematical model for real-time forecasting. The results of the study show that there will not be a significant change in electricity demand in this two area during the 2015-2109 period. 

The purpose of this study was to analyze the dividend performance of eight UAE based banks between the years 2001 and 2005. The analysis was undertaken by examining three sets of financial ratios that are routinely used to measure bank dividend performance. The main ratios that were employed put a particular focus on the banks’ ability to pay dividends in relation to market value of its share, earnings and ability to cover the payments. Descriptive statistical analysis was used to rank the performance, measuring the dispersion and the stability-variability of the indicators. Conclusions were then drawn from the computation of the descriptive analysis of ratios that allowed the author to make an effective comparison of said banks. This type of analysis was used to summarize the performance of each bank based on three criteria, mean, standard deviation and coefficient of variation of each banks performance. The findings showed that eight banks performed reasonably well during the period studied, but have different strategies in paying their dividends across the years under study. The analysis reveals that these banks have been affected by both internal and external factors.

This paper investigates how firms shifted their dividend policies and leverage policies in response to the economic shock caused by the 2008 financial crisis. The sample countries are United States, Great Britain, France, Germany, Australia, Japan, China, and Korea. The empirical relationship of firms’ dividend policies with their capital structures and earnings was likely to undergo a major change around the 2008 financial crisis, as firms adjusted their capital structures and dividend policies in response to the extreme credit crunch caused by the financial crisis. The extent and the speed that firms deleverage themselves and reduce their dividends were likely to be influenced by countries’ cultural and social norms. This paper finds a significant reduction in dividends across sample countries except Great Britain and France after the 2008 crisis. This finding supports the free cash flow theory that dividends are paid to dissipate free cash flow to address agency conflicts between managers and shareholders. This paper finds a higher correlation between dividends and leverages before the 2008 crisis, and that it strengthened after the crisis except Great Britain and Korea. This finding is consistent more with the pecking order theory than with the trade-off theory of leverage.

As being a psychosocial creature, the human composing the organization has series of behavioral talents like feeling, idea, desire, ambition, hope and fear. Humans, besides their technical abilities, bring their hopes and concerns, their life philosophy, all exclusive behaviors with them to organizations where they belive they realize their porsonel hopes and desires and establish cooperation. As aresult, established organization has social, human structural property including different personal ideas and behaviors. It was understood that, humans in the organization do not always behave according to rules, which were set by management, and the economical human logic. Human behave in accordance with their emotions and feeling. Because organizations can not satisfy all needs of humans by assigning formal tasks and physical facilities. As a result of these complex reasons generally the members of the organizations, which are established to perform certain official tasks, establish unofficial organizations by developing relations among themselves in order to satisfy their personal needs and feelings. In this study, accepting the value and importance of the official organization, it is desired to tell that unofficial organization is real and important at least the official organization. Becouse at the same time organizations are feelings system, it is beneficial to determine the role of the human in the organization and to regulate the organizationto this fact.