Executive SummaryThis article stresses the need for today's multinational firms to adopt their own political risk-assessment and risk-mitigation strategies. A comparative study of the energy, financial, and automobile sectors illustrates the need for all companies in these sectors to undertake comprehensive risk-assessment strategies. Risk-assessment models established by leading multinationals like British Petroleum, Bank of America, and General Motors are examined as examples that other companies in these sectors can build upon. The consistent micropolitical risk variables then lead to a proposed practical framework for examining sector-specific micropolitical risk.

This annotated bibliography focuses on the various approaches to studying narrative. It covers the approaches to narrative Ln an interdisciplinary manner, including the fields of psychology, sociology, linguistics, philosophy, anthropology, organisation studies, and history. Narrative is an interpretive approach in the social sciences involving storytelling methodology. The story becomes an object of study, focusing on how individuals or groups make sense of events and actions in their lives. The theoretical underpirmings to narrative approaches are outlined as are the applied benefits of storytelling such as how narrative conveys tacit knowledge, how it can enable sense making, and how it constructs identity. The study aims to explore the potential of narrative as a research tool for enhancing Army's understanding of knowledge acquisition in the context of Battle Command Training. This bibliography outlines how the narrative approach can be used as an alternative for the study of human action. Narrative is an interpretive approach in the social sciences and involves using storytelling methodology. The story becomes an object of study, focusing on how individuals or groups make sense of events and actions in their lives. Researchers capture the informant's story through ethnographic techniques such as observation and interviews. This method is said to be well suited to study subjectivity and the influence of culture and identity on the human condition. RELEASE LIMITATIONThe literature search has covered topics ranging across narrative, narrative theory, the use of storytelling and sense making. The search highlighted a growing trend in the use of the narrative approach across disciplines such as psychology, sociology, anthropology, linguistics, organisation studies and history. Key search terms used were: 'narrative', 'storytelling', 'sense making', 'narrative and organisation', 'narrative and organisation studies', 'stories', 'discourse analysis', 'organisation learning', and 'organisation decision making'. Articles on historical narratives and narrative therapy in psychology were excluded, as they were not relevant to the study. Articles on organisation studies focusing on change, culture, identity and tacit knowledge transfer through story were found useful in the research. The study aims to explore the potential of narrative as a research tool for enhancing Army's understanding of knowledge acquisition in the context of Battle Command Training.This bibliography therefore provides a substantial reference point to review the literature regarding this methodology. References in the bibliography allow researchers to identify with ease the theoretical grounding to the approach, and review alternative positions to the study of narrative. The case studies included provide examples of how research is conducted within this field, and thus the bibliography can act to support researchers in developing this research tool for understanding the context of formal and informal learning within training arenas. Furthe...

This article extends the literature on ethical investment risks, correlations, and comovements. Through a sample of 17 Islamic, socially responsible investment (SRI), and conventional stock indices, we investigate cointegration and dynamic correlations for the period 2005–2015. We also examine these stock indices’ responses to two major economic factors, namely, oil prices and market volatility. Our results show cointegration between Islamic, SRI and conventional stock indices, and comovements with mutual causalities. During crises, dynamic correlations tend to spike; however, quite a different pattern emerges during postcrisis periods when there is more variability in conditional covariances. Finally, we provide evidence that all three types of stock indices react positively to oil price changes, but negatively to global equity market volatility, albeit with different magnitudes. Overall, investors can obtain portfolio diversification benefits through SRI and Islamic stock indices, particularly in postcrisis periods.

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The Islamic financial industry is growing at a rate 50% faster than that of conventional banking and is expected to be worth USD 2.1 trillion by the end of 2014. This rapid growth and institutionalization of an alternative financial market highlights a growing need to further investigate Sharia-compliant markets and how they compare with their conventional market counterparts. This paper investigates this broad relationship by focusing on the effects of Ramadan upon the performance of Sharia-compliant financial instruments. Specifically, we utilize an event-study methodology to compare the performance of Sharia-compliant stocks to their conventional counterparts across a large sample of countries and regions. We find strong evidence for a significant Ramadan effect within Muslim majority countries and regions. The effect is strongest in the days leading up to Ramadan, and also around the beginning of Ramadan’s third Ashra on the 20th day. This timing reflects the mental, emotional and practical preparations that individuals go through during the course of the month-long observance. These results are not consistent with traditional economic expectations and therefore reflect the unique socially-embedded nature of this emerging and religiously inspired financial system.